DR.  J.  B.  CRANFI 

iiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiniii 

CHRONICLE 

A  STORY 
OF  LIFE 
IN  TEXAS 


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DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 


DR.  J.  B.  GRANFILL'S 
CHRONICLE 


A  Story  of 
LIFE  IN  TEXAS 

Written  by  Himself  About  Himself 


New  York         Chicago         Toronto 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  N.  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:    100  Princess  Street 


t  rj7 


\. 


Bancroft  Library 


^v^ 


TO  MY  CHILDREN 

AND 

GRANDCHILDREN 


^ 


FOREWORD 

WHEN  I  announced  to  my  good  friend  CuUen 
Thomas  that  I  was  writing  an  autobiography,  he 
said,  "  I  should  think  it  would  be  very  interest- 
ing— to  your  It  has  been  interesting  to  me,  so  I  spared 
him,  and  it  may  be,  kind  reader,  that  before  this  recital  is 
done  you  will  wish  that  I  had  spared  you. 

Until  I  wrote  this  book  I  had  never  talked  about  myself 
as  much  as  I  wanted  to.  Every  time  I  have  sat  down  with 
a  friend  to  talk  to  him  six  or  seven  hours  about  W3;self,  he 
has  butted  in  to  talk  about  /timself,  with  the  result  that  I 
have  never  until  now  been  allowed  to  finish  the  story.  Here 
it  is,  however,  in  all  it's  gorgeous  fulness. 

This  volume,  while  it  contains  many  sentences  written  in 
the  lighter  vein,  has  at  bottom  a  serious  purpose.  While  I 
realize  that  the  publication  of  an  autobiography  may  sug- 
gest that  the  writer  has  an  unwarranted  degree  of  self-im- 
portance, it  is  nevertheless  true  that  a  faithful  recital  of  the 
incidents  of  any  life,  however  humbly  lived,  cannot  fail  to 
be  invested  with  a  degree  of  human  interest  that  will  be  both 
inspiring  and  instructive. 

While  all  of  this  is  true,  this  book  would  never  have  been 
written  if  it  had  not  been  for  my  desire  to  record  for  my 
children  and  grandchildren  the  incidents  that  follow.  I  wish 
my  own  father,  his  father,  or  his  father's  father,  or  all  three, 
had  written  just  such  a  work  for  me. 

Another  incentive  to  the  publication  of  this  volume  has 
been  that  of  preserving  in  permanent  form  the  history  of  a 
period  of  our  Texas  life  that  is  being  rapidly  obscured,  and 
unless  thus  chronicled  would  soon  pass  from  public  view. 


viii  FOREWORD 

I  have  sought  to  be  true  to  the  history  of  the  era  thus  trav- 
ersed, and  I  believe  the  story  will  hold  more  than  a  passing 
interest,  not  only  for  the  people  of  our  own  State,  but  for 
other  minds  as  well. 

The  greatest  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  help  other  men, 
and  particularly  young  men,  to  properly  project  their  lives, 
and  to  nobly  live  them.  The  story  is  frankly  told,  and  in  its 
recital  I  have  sought  to  point  a  moral  rather  than  to  adorn 
a  tale,  and  to  magnify  those  high  ideals  that  have  conspired 
to  the  making  of  the  great  men  of  our  country. 

And  now  this  story,  with  all  its  faults,  whatever  they 
are,  and  its  excellencies,  whatever  they  may  be,  is  sent  out 
with  the  hope  that  above  everything  it  will  make  for  the 
happiness,  prosperity  and  usefulness  of  those  who  shall 
peruse  its  pages. 

Dallas,  Texas.  J.  B.  Cranfill. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

I.    Ancestry  and  Birth i 

II.     Some  Recollections  of  Childhood lo 

III.  Other  Recollections  of  Childhood.  ...   19 

IV.  Down  in  Gonzales  County 29 

V.  My      First     Book  —  Bastrop      County 

School  Days  42 

VI.     Some  Boyhood  Reminiscences 55 

VII.    "  Busting  a  Broncho  " 66 

VIII.    An  Old-Time  Country  Dance 72 

IX.    A  Boy  in  Love 80 

X.  A  Hardshell  Baptist  Foot  Washing.  . .  89 

XI.     Concerning  My  Father 94 

XII.     The  '70's  IN  Bastrop  County loi 

XIII.  The  Story  of  a  Great  Affliction 106 

XIV.  Nervousness,  Nuisances  and  Noise.  ...  117 
XV.  Some  Suggestions  for  Nervous  People.  .  126 

XVI.     The  Story  of  a  Mob 130 

XVII.  Closing  Scenes  in  Bastrop  County.  ...  134 

XVIII.  The  End  of  Our  Residence  in  Bastrop 

County    143 

XIX.     On  the  Old  Chisholm  Beef  Trail 147 

XX.    The  Story  of  a  Stampede 154 

XXI.     In  the  Hog  Creek  Country 159 

XXII.    The  Story  of  My  Conversion 164 

XXIII.  Baptism  and  Church  Membership 173 

XXIV.  Odds  and  Ends  of  Events,  1876 177 

XXV.     As  a  Country  School  Teacher 188 

XXVI.     School  Life  at  Crawford 198 

XXVII.     Closing  Scenes  at  Crawford 212 


CONTENTS 


Chapter                                                                  Page 
XXVIII.    The  Vaughan    Murder   and   Its    Con- 
sequences     221 

XXIX.    The    Stull    Murder    and    Its    Conse- 
quences     229 

XXX.    A   Backward   Look   at  the   Crawford 

Days 239 

XXXI.    As  A  Country  Doctor 242 

XXXII.     My  First  Patient 247 

XXXIII.  A  Growing  Medical  Practice 250 

XXXIV.  More  About  Life  at  Turnersville 254 

XXXV.    A  New  Departure  and  a  Unique  Inci- 
dent  260 

XXXVI.     More  About  Turnersville 266 

XXXVII.     Breaking  Into  Journalism 269 

XXXVIII.     Odds  and  Ends  of  the  Life  at  Turners- 
ville   275 

XXXIX.     The  Trail  of  the  Serpent 279 

XL.     The  Life  at  Gatesville 285 

XLI.     More  About  Gatesville 290 

XLII.    An  Enlarging  Field 303 

XLIII.     Other  Incidents  in  the  Life  at  Gates- 
ville     309 

XLIV.     Odds  and  Ends  of  the  Life  at  Gates- 
ville   318 

XLV.     Our  First  Great  Sorrow 322 

XLVI.     My  First  Baptist  Convention 330 

XLVII.     Luther  Benson  333 

XLVIII.     Debate  With  Roger  Q.  Mills 335 

XLIX.    The  Move  to  Waco 341 

L.     Foregleams  of  a  New  Career 350 

LI.    The  Beginning  OF  A  Great  Affliction.  .357 

LII.     On  a  New  Trail 361 

LIII.    The  Story  of  Four  Conventions 365 

LIV.    Entering  Upon  Another  New  Work.  .  .371 


CONTENTS  xi 

Chapter  Page 

LV.    As  Superintendent  of  Missions 377 

LVI.     Ordination  to  the  Ministry 380 

LVII.     The  Death  of  My  Mother 384 

LVIIL     An  Accident  and  Many  Incidents 387 

LIX.    A  Growing  Missionary  Work 393 

LX.     Private  Business  Matters 396 

LXI.     More  About  the  Mission  Work 398 

LXIL    Another  Plunge  Into  Journalism 402 

LXIII.    An    Eventful    Year    in    Prohibition 

Work  407 

LXIV.     Campaigning  for  the  National  Prohi- 
bition Party   411 

LXV.     The  Baptist  Standard  at  Waco 418 

LXVL     Trying  Days  for  the  Standard 422 

LXVII.     H.  J.  Chamberlin 426 

LXVIII.     Some  Passing  Incidents 434 

LXIX.     The    Beginnings    of    S.    A.    Hayden's 

Assaults  439 

LXX.    A  Lull  Between  the  Storms 442 

LXXI.     New  Blood  in  the  Standard 448 

LXXII.     The  Hayden  Litigation 453 

LXXIIL     Some  Details  of  Literary  Work 457 

LXXIV.    As  A  Sunday  School  Teacher 460 

LXXV.    As  AN  Editor 463 

LXXVI.     Giving  up  the  Baptist  Standard 465 

LXXVIL     As  A  Business  Man 470 

LXXVIII.     Two  Friends  and  Their  Letters 473 

LXXIX.     Some  Doctors  I  Have  Known 477 

LXXX.     The  Death  of  My  Father 480 

LXXXI.    As  A  Church  Member 482 

LXXXII.     George  W.  Truett's  Call  to  Dallas 487 

LXXXIII.     Working  for  Prohibition 488 

LXXXIV.     R.  W.  Sears 491 

LXXXV.    Some  Closing  Words 494 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Portrait  of  J.  B.  Cranfill Frontispiece 

Dr.  Eaton  Cranfill,  Father  of  J.  B.  Cranfill 3 

Mrs.  Martha  Jane  (Galloway)  Cranfill,  Mother  of  J.  B.  Cranfill  5 

A  Familiar  Scene  in  Parker  County  in  1858 15 

Dr.  T.  E.  Cranfill 35 

"When  Springtime  Came  the  Brands  of  a  Cow  Oft  Bespoke 

Three  Owners" yj 

"Busting  a  Broncho" 66 

A  Broncho,  and  His  Way  With  a  Tenderfoot 69 

Mrs.  Amanda  J.  Williams 72 

Mrs.  Carrie  Snead 78 

J.  B.  Cranfill,  When  He  Loved  Sallie 80 

A  Cowboy,  and  His  Way  With  a  Cow 148 

J.  B.  Cranfill,  When  He  Taught  the  Crawford  School 198 

J.  B.  Cranfill,  Tom  E.  Cranfill  and  Thomas  Mabry  Cranfill 250 

Mrs.  Tom  E.  (Mai  Seay)  Cranfill  and  Children 251 

J.  B.  Cranfill,  When  Editor  of  The  Gatesville  Advance 286 

Mrs.  J.  B.  Cranfill 287 

Carroll  Britton  Cranfill 322 

J.  B.  Cranfill  and  Luther  Benson ZZZ 

Dr.  John  O.  McReynolds 357 

Dr.  Dero  E.  Seay 359 

Rev.  George  W.  Truett,  Pastor  First  Baptist  Church,  Dallas 382 

Miss  Mabel  Cranfill ." 418 

B.  H.  Carroll 448 

C.  C.  Slaughter 448 

J.  B.  Cranfill,  When  He  Moved  to  Dallas 450 

B.  H.  Carroll,  Jr 465 

Rev.  E.  P.  West 466 

B.  J.  Robert 467 

Rev.  N.  A.  Scale 468 

Dr.  and  Mrs.  R.  C.  Buckner  and  Mrs.  Westerfield 475 

Dr.  J.  T.  Harrington 477 

Battle  Creek  Sanitarium 478 

Dr.  John  H.  Kellogg 478 

Mrs.  Lillian  (Cranfill)  Lindsey 480 

Mrs.  Josephine  (Cranfill)   Richardson  and  Child 482 

R.  W.  Sears 491 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

I  KNOW  very  little  of  my  forefathers  or  foremothers. 
That  I  am  descended  from  Adam,  I  have  never  had  a 
doubt.  Where  the  genealogical  tree  branched  out  and 
where  the  line  of  kinship  diverged,  I  do  not  know.  I  am 
pretty  sure  that  I  am  also  descended  from  Noah  and  his 
bunch.  There,  is  Noah  to  deny  it.  (Pun  No.  i.)  Whether 
from  Shem,  Ham  or  Japheth,  I  will  not  pretend  to  even  sug- 
gest, but  until  I  became  a  vegetarian  I  was  partial  to  ham. 
However,  I  feel  that  I  am  a  descendant  of  Japheth.  I  have 
no  late  photographs  of  Japheth,  but  there  is  a  family  resem- 
blance between  my  folks  and  Japheth's  folks. 

My  father's  family  were  English  and  my  mother's  Scotch. 
The  Cranfills  came  to  North  Carolina  before  the  American 
Revolution,  and  so  did  the  Galloways.  My  mother  was  a 
Galloway  and  my  father's  mother  was  a  Galloway.  My 
father  and  mother  were  third  cousins.  The  tradition  in 
our  family  is  that  the  name  Cranfill  was  originally  Granville. 
My  father's  oldest  brother,  dear  Uncle  Tom  Cranfill,  long 
since,  through  predestination,  in  the  Home  above,  (he  was  a 
Hardshell  Baptist,)  detailed  to  me  once  a  very  interesting 
tradition  concerning  the  name  Cranfill.  He  said  we  were 
related  to  Lord  Granville,  of  England.  That  is  a  great  credit 
to  Lord  Granville.  It  never  bought  us  anything,  even  if  true, 
but  it  was  an  interesting  statement  and  one  I  had  intended 
to  investigate  if  I  ever  visited  the  Old  World.  I  would  like 
to  go  up  and  speak  to  Lord  Granville  and  ask  him  if  we 
didn't  look  like  twins.    In  the  event  we  did,  it  was  my  pur- 

1 


2  DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

pose  to  have  him  go  and  show  me  the  family  tree  and  see  if 
we  could  trace  a  connection  of  such  an  intimate  nature  as  to 
justify  me  in  asking  a  loan  of  sufficient  funds  on  which  to 
return  to  America,  but  I  have  never  had  a  chance  to  go  to 
England  and  perhaps  never  will.  If  I  do  not,  this  question 
must  remain  unsettled. 

Our  name  came  from  somewhere  and  it  might  just  as  well 
have  come  from  Granville  as  from  any  other  source,  and  if 
we  are  really  related  to  a  lord  over  there,  I  do  not  see  that 
it  has  ever  hurt  any  of  us.  We  are  not  puffed  up  over  the 
matter  and  would  not  be  if  we  were  related  to  all  the  lords 
of  England,  because  I  do  not  believe  it  would  buy  us  any 
more  to  be  related  to  a  lord  than  to  a  common  Englishman  of 
the  ordinary  garden  variety. 

We  know  a  little  more  about  the  Galloway  side  than  we  do 
about  the  Cranfill  side.  I  had  a  long  talk  once  with  my 
cousin,  the  late  Bishop  Charles  B.  Galloway,  in  his  home  at 
Jackson,  Mississippi,  and  he  told  me  the  Galloways  of  Amer- 
ica all  descended  from  a  Scotchman  of  that  name  who  came 
here  and  turned  loose  upon  an  innocent  and  unsuspecting 
public  seven  sons.  They  scattered  to  the  various  parts  of 
the  United  States,  some  coming  South  and  some  going 
North.  The  Galloway  from  whom  my  mother  was  descended 
went  to  North  Carolina,  and  the  Galloway  from  whom 
Bishop  Galloway  was  descended  went  to  Mississippi.  They 
were  a  very  prolific  family. 

My  mother's  forebears  were  soldiers  in  the  American  Rev- 
olution. I  tried  some  years  ago  to  connect  up  with  them  be- 
cause I  wanted  to  join  the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution and  be  a  sure  enough  somebody,  but  I  found  that  so 
many  men  had  become  Daughters  of  the  Revolution  that 
the  clerks  in  the  Department  at  Washington  had  acquired 
that  tired  feeling  and  didn't  want  any  more  daughters  to 
come  in.  There  possibly  has  been  organized  a  D.  A.  R. 
Union  and  nobody  can  come  in  now  that  hasn't  a  Union  card. 


Dr.  Eaton  Cranfill,  Father  of  J.  B.  Cranfill. 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH  3 

However  that  may  be,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  original 
Galloways  were  Revolutionary  soldiers,  and  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  the  CranfiUs  also  were.  Both  of  these  families 
settled  in  the  Yadkin  River  country  in  North  Carolina  near 
to  Daniel  Boone.  They  knew  Daniel  well,  and  the  tradition 
in  our  family  is  that  when  Daniel  came  across  from  North 
Carolina  to  Kentucky,  the  Cranfills  and  Galloways  came  with 
him.  There  is  a  further  tradition  that  either  Daniel  Boone 
married  a  sister  of  the  original  American  CranfiU,  whose 
name  was  Jeremiah,  or  that  Jeremiah  married  Daniel's  sis- 
ter, or  that  they  married  sisters.  I  was  not  present  at  the 
time  and  cannot  really  testify  as  to  the  facts  in  the  case. 
However,  they  did  come  across  with  Daniel  Boone  and  they 
settled  in  various  parts  of  Kentucky.  The  Boone  tradition 
was  so  strong  in  my  family  that  one  of  my  names  is  Boone. 
If  I  had  been  living  then,  I  am  sure  Daniel  and  I  would  have 
been  boon  companions.     (No.  2.) 

The  public  has  never  known  exactly  what  my  name  was, 
and  I  might  as  well  tell  it  here  so  as  to  let  it  fit  into  the 
Boone  part  of  the  story. 

My  name  is  James  Britton  Buchanan  Boone  CranfiU. 

When  I  was  a  little  boy,  I  found  myself  burdened  with 
too  many  initials.  It  never  was  called  to  my  attention  until 
I  started  to  writing-school  and  began  to  learn  how  to  write. 
I  attended  a  writing-school  that  was  taught  by  a  man  named 
John  L.  Pyle,  who  afterwards  became  a  Baptist  minister  and 
missionaried  a  lot  out  in  the  Panhandle  country.  I  have 
never  seen  him  since  I  was  eight  years  old,  but  he  was  an 
awfully  nice  man  and  I  hope  he  is  living  now  and  doing  well. 
When  I  learned  how  to  sign  my  name,  I  went  home  one  night 
in  rather  a  pathetic  frame  of  mind.  I  took  my  mother  off 
to  one  side,  and  after  hanging  a  while  to  her  apron  strings, 
I  asked  her  if  she  would  allow  me  to  express  myself  con- 
cerning the  question  of  my  initials.  She  said  she  would, 
whereupon  I  said  as  follows : 


4  DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

"  Mother,  I  cannot  be  happy  in  the  thought  that  I  will  have 
all  my  life  long  to  sign  four  initials  to  my  name,  and  I  want 
you  to  let  me  drop  two  of  the  B's  so  that  my  name  will  sim- 
ply be  J.  B.  Cranfill." 

My  mother  was  a  good  woman,  sympathetic  in  her  nature, 
tender  of  heart,  loving  and  kind,  and  so  she  kissed  me  and 
said  if  I  wanted  it  that  way  it  should  be  so.  I  therefore 
dropped  two  of  the  B's.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  dropped 
the  Buchanan-Boone  B's,  or  the  Britton-Buchanan  B's,  or 
the  Britton-Boone  B's.  I  only  know  that  I  sign  one  B  to  ex- 
press the  three  names,  Britton-Buchanan-Boone.  It  may  be 
that  my  name  has  been  Boone  all  these  years.  In  any  case, 
we  were  connected  with  the  Boones  at  that  early  time  and 
I  think  a  great  deal  of  the  memory  of  Daniel  Boone.  I  read 
all  the  story  about  him  when  I  was  a  lad  and  I  am  glad  to 
believe  that  my  ancestors  were  friends  of  his.  He  was  a 
pretty  lusty  old  chap  and  did  some  rather  straight  rifle  shoot- 
ing in  the  days  when  rifles  and  rifle-shooters  were  scarce 
and  badly  needed.  I  feel  pleased  that  my  name  was  Boone 
and  may  yet  be  Boone.  Anyhow,  I  am  somewhat  Boone-ish, 
I  know,  and  it  makes  me  feel  good  every  time  I  think 
about  it. 

My  mother  and  home-folks  called  me  "  Britton,"  which 
was,  by  vulgarians,  abbreviated  to  "  Britt."  The  latter  ap- 
pelation  I  detested,  just  as,  later  in  life,  after  I  became  a 
doctor,  I  rebelled  at  being  called  "  Doc." 

My  grandfather's  name  was  John  Cranfill  and  he  had  six 
sons.  My  father  was  the  third  son  and  was  named  Eaton 
Cranfill,  his  grandmother  being  an  Eaton  and  undoubtedly 
related  to  T.  T.  Eaton,  late  editor  of  The  Western  Recorder, 
It  is  altogether  probable  that  I  would  not  mention  this  fact 
if  T.  T.  Eaton  were  now  living  so  he  could  deny  it,  but  the 
dear,  good  man  is  in  heaven  and  there  is  no  chance  for  him 
to  say  that  this  part  of  the  biography  is  incorrect,  so  I  set  up 
the  claim  to  being  a  kinsman  of  his.    We  talked  about  the 


Mrs.  Martha  Jane   (Galloway)   Cranfill,  Mother  of 
J.  B.  Cranfill. 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH  5 

matter  more  than  once,  and  there  were  times,  when  he  was 
editor  of  The  Western  Recorder  and  I  was  editor  of  The 
Baptist  Standard,  that  we  were  perfectly  willing  to  claim 
kin,  but  there  were  other  times  when  he  wouldn't  for  the 
world  have  agreed  to  it,  nor  would  I,  so  we  let  it  go  at  that. 

My  father  was  born  near  Paducah,  Kentucky,  September 
26,  1829.  My  mother  was  born  near  Princeton,  Kentucky, 
February  4,  1829.  They  married  when  they  were  about 
eighteen  years  of  age,  and  after  my  oldest  sister  was  born 
on  December  31,  1849,  they  loaded  all  their  belongings,  in- 
cluding the  baby,  in  an  ox  wagon  and  started  for  Texas. 
This,  to  my  mind,  was  an  awfully  brave  thing  for  these 
young  folks  to  do.  In  those  good  days  even  Kentucky  was 
wild,  and  the  contemplation  of  coming  to  Texas  and  becom- 
ing identified  with  this  new  land  was  one  from  which  the 
average  poverty-stricken  youth  would  have  shrunk  in  terror. 
My  father,  however,  was  not  only  an  enterprising  pioneer — 
he  was  a  brave  man.  He  had  in  him  the  best  blood  that  has 
ever  coursed  in  American  veins.  Pioneer  blood  is  always  the 
best.  So  they  fared  forth  on  one  bright  day,  driving  the  ox 
team  down  the  big  road  that  pointed  to  the  West,  with  my 
mother  and  the  baby  up  on  the  front  seat  and  the  dog  trot- 
ting by  the  tar  bucket  under  the  wagon.  I  do  not  know  all 
the  details  of  that  long  journey,  but  I  do  know  that  when 
they  finally  landed  in  Texas,  they  found  themselves  at  Cal- 
loway, Upshur  County,  whence  my  oldest  uncle,  Tom  Cran- 
fill,  had  already  gone.  He  was  pretty  well  situated  there  at 
that  time  in  the  pottery  business,  and  a  brother  of  my  fath- 
er's mother.  Col.  C.  C.  Galloway,  was  located  at  Gilmer  prac- 
ticing law.  I  remember  very  little  of  Col.  Galloway,  but 
he  was  a  man  who  stood  well  in  his  community  and  made  his 
mark  in  his  profession. 

Eastern  Texas  was  at  that  time  too  slow  for  my  father. 
There  were  no  Indians  down  there  and  no  excitement  of  any 
kind,  and  no  wide  outstretching  prairies  where  he  could  se- 


6  DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

cure  for  himself  some  rich  new  land.  He  staid  there  but  a 
little  while  and  pushed  on  out  into  Western  Texas,  settling 
for  a  short  while  in  Denton  County,  then  going  on  out  fur- 
ther into  Parker  County,  where  another  brother,  Isom  Cran- 
fill,  had  preceded  him.  He  reached  Denton  County  about 
1853,  and  my  brother.  Dr.  T.  E.  Cranfill,  was  born  in  Den- 
ton County  November  17,  1854.  Pretty  soon  he  pushed  on  to 
Parker  County  and  settled  on  Dry  Creek,  near  where  Whitt 
now  stands  and  very  close  to  my  Uncle  Isom's  home. 

At  that  time,  Parker  County  was  a  wilderness — an  unset- 
tled, wide  stretch  of  prairie  and  timber  with  very  few  settle- 
ments and  with  the  few  straggling  families  living  in  constant 
terror  of  massacre  by  the  Indians,  who  swept  down  upon 
them  on  every  moonlit  night.  Parker  County  was  organized 
in  1857.  I  was  born  in  that  county  there  on  Dry  Creek,  near 
where  Whitt  now  is,  on  September  12,  1858.  I  was  very 
young  when  I  was  born  and  so  I  do  not  remember  the  details 
of  that  auspicious  incident,  but  I  have  heard  my  mother  say 
that  it  was  on  a  Sunday  morning  and  that  I  made  my  advent 
into  this  sublunary  sphere  on  a  very  beautiful  sunshiny  day. 
I  am  glad  of  this,  because  if  there  is  anything  in  the  world 
that  I  really  and  truly  despise,  it  is  a  sour-visaged,  long- 
faced,  dyspeptic  misanthrope  who  is  out  of  joint  with  him- 
self and  all  the  balance  of  creation. 

My  mother  and  father  both  were  Baptists.  So  far  as  I 
know,  most  of  the  Cranfills  and  Galloways  have  been  Bap- 
tists ever  since  the  days  of  the  apostles.  I  think  it  is  to  their 
credit  that  they  came  of  such  splendid  ecclesiastical  stock. 
They  were  not  all  missionary  Baptists.  My  father  and  mother 
were  members  of  what  was  then  called  the  United  Baptists. 
These  were  made  up  of  Baptists,  as  shown  in  Spencer's  His- 
tory of  Kentucky  Baptists,  that  had  formed  a  union  between 
the  anti-missionary  and  missionary  Baptists,  and  churches 
of  this  type  were  constituted  in  various  parts  of  Kentucky 
and  some  even  down  as  far  south  as  Texas.    Later  on  in  his 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH  7 

career,  my  father  became  identified  with  what  is  known  in 
Southwest  Texas  as  the  Primitive  Baptists,  but  they  were 
not  at  any  time  the  two-seed  branch  of  the  Primitive  Bap- 
tists. On  the  contrary,  they  were  men  of  more  than  usual 
intelligence  and  did  a  vast  amount  of  good  in  their  chosen 
fields  of  labor.  My  father  was  really  always  at  heart  a  mis- 
sionary and  so  was  my  mother,  and  I  am  proud  of  the  fact 
that  they  never  at  any  time  went  to  the  great  extreme,  either 
theologically  or  in  their  views  concerning  missions  and  edu- 
cation, that  some  of  them  did.  Some  years  before  their 
death,  they  both  became  actively  identified  with  the  Mis- 
sionary Baptists. 

I  have  always  been  glad  that  Parker  County  was  organ- 
ized in  1857.  It  was  undoubtedly  organized  on  purpose  for 
my  advent.  It  would  have  been  a  most  unfortunate  cir- 
cumstance if  I  had  been  born  away  out  there  and  not  have 
had  a  county  of  some  name  to  have  been  born  in.  I  rejoice 
in  the  fact  that  Parker  County  came  to  the  kingdom  for  such 
a  time  as  that,  and  that  Weatherford  had  already  become 
a  fort,  so  that  after  my  coming  into  the  world,  my  parents 
could  bundle  me  up  any  old  night  and  rush  into  Weatherford 
with  me  to  save  me  from  being  killed  by  the  Indians.  I 
would  not  have  needed  to  be  scalped,  because  at  that  period 
of  my  career  I  was  as  bald  as  I  am  now.  Between  the  two 
extremes,  however,  I  did  have  some  hair,  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary now  to  enter  upon  a  subject  so  full  of  harassing  rem- 
iniscences.    (Another  pun.) 

Speaking  of  Weatherford  and  the  Indians,  I  will  detail 
here  the  reasons  why  my  father  subsequently  abandoned  his 
residence  in  Parker  County  and  went  back  to  Upshur 
County.  He  despaired  of  a  speedy  subjugation  of  the  wil- 
derness. The  Indians  were  frightfully  active.  They  would 
come  down,  steal  all  the  horses  in  the  community  that  they 
could  get  their  hands  on,  murder  such  settlers  as  were  ex- 
posed, and  hasten  back  to  their  mountain  fastnesses  farther 


8  DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

north  and  west.  My  father  had  begun  to  be  prosperous  in 
his  affairs,  but  one  day  he  told  my  dear  Uncle  Isom  Cranfill 
that  he  preferred  to  go  back  to  a  safer  post  for  his  family 
rather  than  stay  in  that  section,  even  if  he  could  prosper 
materially  there  in  a  much  greater  degree  than  he  could 
down  in  Eastern  Texas.  For  that  reason,  he  bundled  us  all 
up  before  I  could  remember  about  it  and  took  us  down  into 
Upshur  County,  where  we  resided  during  the  period  of  the 
Civil  War. 

It  is  a  sad  and  painful  fact  to  recite  in  this  Chronicle  that 
twelve  years  after  my  birth,  in  1870,  after  we  had  removed 
from  Upshur  to  Southwest  Texas,  my  uncle's  eldest  son, 
Linn  Boyd  Cranfill,  a  youth  of  fourteen  years,  was  killed 
by  the  Indians  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  where  I  was 
born.  He  had  gone  out  to  tether  his  pony  and  the  Comanche 
Indians  swept  down  and  shot  him  in  sight  of  his  father's 
and  mother's  home.  It  was  a  frightful  blow  to  us  all,  but 
it  confirmed  my  dear  father  in  his  conviction  that  he  had 
done  the  right  thing  in  taking  us  back  into  the  older  settled 
portions  of  the  State. 

My  Uncle  Isom  Cranfill  was  a  good  man  and  prospered 
in  worldly  affairs.  He  strayed  off  from  the  original  Cran- 
fill faith  and  joined  the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  He  was  a 
very  ardent  advocate  of  the  teachings  of  Alexander  Camp- 
bell, which  he  believed  profoundly  were  the  teachings  of  the 
New  Testament.  One  of  the  memories  I  have  of  his  visits 
to  my  father  at  various  times  is  that  they  would  literally 
talk  all  night  about  their  religious  differences.  They  loved 
each  other  tenderly,  and  my  father  believed  that  my  uncle 
was  so  far  astray  that  he  labored  with  him  as  if  the  whole 
world  depended  upon  convincing  my  uncle  of  the  error  of 
his  way. 

They  went  on  that  way  unto  the  end,  my  uncle  dying 
some  years  ago  in  a  Fort  Worth  hospital  after  a  serious 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH  9 

operation,  and  my  father  a  few  years  later  down  at  Waco, 
of  which  event  I  will  speak  subsequently  in  this  chronicle. 

This  set  of  CranfiU  boys  were  awfully  full  of  fun.  They 
laid  traps  for  each  other.  They  were  very  active  physi- 
cally ;  they  were  men  of  good  mental  make-up  and  each  one 
did  his  share  of  the  world's  work  in  whatever  situation  he 
was  placed. 

I  remember  to  have  heard  my  father  relate  an  incident 
that  occurred  when  he  was  a  boy  in  his  father's  home.  It 
happened  one  morning  that  another  brother,  John  Cranfill, 
who  was  subsequently  killed  in  the  Confederate  service, 
drank  the  coffee  when  it  was  almost  boiling  hot.  His  father 
had  not  yet  sipped  his  coffee,  so  my  Uncle  John  turned  to 
his  mother  and  said,  "  Mother,  why  on  earth  have  you 
brought  to  the  table  this  morning  cold  coffee  ?  "  My  grand- 
father, hearing  this  remark,  supposed  that  the  coffee  really 
was  cold,  so  he  took  a  big  sup  of  it  in  his  mouth  and  it 
scalded  him  quite  severely.  That  was  great  fun  for  the 
boy,  but  he  had  to  have  his  fun  down  at  the  back  of  the 
field,  because  the  old  gentleman  made  for  him  in  double- 
quick  time,  and  if  he  had  caught  Uncle  John,  he  probably 
would  have  had  to  drink  all  of  his  coffee  and  eat  his  food 
off  the  mantel-piece  for  some  weeks  following.  As  the  mat- 
ter went,  however,  he  got  safely  away,  and  when  my  grand- 
father got  over  the  first  flush  of  his  anger,  he  laughed  heart- 
ily about  it  and  forgave  Uncle  John  when  the  boys  came 
home  at  noon. 


II 

SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  MY  CHILDHOOD 

THE  first  conscious  recollection  that  I  have  of  any 
place  is  of  Calloway,  in  Upshur  County.  I  must 
have  been  about  two  and  a  half  years  old  when  my 
father  landed  again  in  his  first  Texas  home.  The  first  thing 
that  I  can  remember  is  that  my  brother  and  I  were  playing 
with  Albert  and  Luther,  Uncle  Tom's  boys,  close  to  the  old 
clay  mill,  where  my  Uncle  Tom  fashioned  the  jars  and  jugs 
and  crocks  and  other  pottery  ware.  My  uncle  was  a  good 
potter  and  a  very  honest  one.  He  made  all  of  his  vessels 
full  measure,  out  of  good  clay,  and  was  in  all  respects  one  of 
the  most  conscientious  men  I  ever  knew.  One  of  the  first 
things  I  remember  is  the  death  of  his  little  son  Ira.  I  do  not 
remember  now  what  caused  Ira's  death,  but  it  was  deeply 
impressed  upon  my  mind. 

The  next  thing  that  I  remember  with  any  great  vividness 
is  an  accident  that  befell  me.  We  lived  about  three  miles 
from  Uncle  Tom's,  and  one  of  the  greatest  joys  of  my  early 
childhood  was  to  go  to  Uncle  Tom's  and  stay  all  night.  My 
father  let  me  go  one  night  to  spend  the  night  with  Uncle 
Tom's  boys.  They  were  early  risers  and  it  was  in  the  win- 
ter time.  When  Albert,  the  oldest  boy,  got  up  next  morning 
to  build  the  fire,  I  wanted  to  be  very  smart,  so  I  got  up,  too. 
The  live  coals  had  been  left  in  the  fireplace,  so  Albert  began 
by  stirring  up  these  live  coals.  I  was  not  yet  fully  awake,  so 
I  went  close  to  the  fireplace,  intending  to  lean  up  against 
the  jamb.  I  missed  the  jamb  and  fell  into  the  fire.  My  left 
hand  was  plunged  directly  into  the  bed  of  live  coals.    When 

lO 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  11 

they  got  me  out,  I  was  in  an  agony  of  pain.  They  immedi- 
ately sent  for  my  father,  who  was  a  physician.  I  was  born 
left-handed,  but  became  an  ambidexter.  At  that  time,  my 
mother  was  somewhat  grieved  over  my  left-handedness  and 
felt  that  when  I  recovered,  if  I  should  fully  recover  from 
my  burn,  I  would  be  right-handed,  but  I  was  not,  because 
left-handedness  is  in  the  brain  and  not  in  the  hand. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  I  got  well.  When  I  found  my- 
self entirely  recovered,  I  was  still  just  as  left-handed  as  I 
was  before.  I  throw  right-handed.  I  use  a  hammer  or  a  . 
hatchet  in  my  left  hand.  I  use  a  pen  or  pencil  in  my  right 
hand.  I  use  a  knife  in  my  left  hand.  I  sleep  right-handed, 
I  snore  left-handed.  I  laugh  right-handed.  I  walk  left- 
handed.  I  ride  a  horse  left-handed  and  drive  an  automobile 
right-handed.  I  go  to  church  ambidextrously  and  sing  unan- 
imously. By  the  way,  when  I  used  to  sing  in  the  choir  at 
Waco,  a  lady  friend  of  mine  said  that  she  loved  to  see  me 
sing.  She  never  expressed  herself  as  to  whether  or  not  she 
loved  to  hear  me  sing. 

One  of  the  recollections  of  that  period  of  my  childhood 
was  concerning  the  unfortunate  experiences  of  a  Hardshell 
Baptist  preacher  by  the  name  of  Stringer.  He  was  preach- 
ing at  the  Stony  Point  chapel  not  far  from  Calloway,  and 
the  chapel  had  as  its  pulpit  the  old-fashioned  style  of  boxed- 
up  affair  so  familiar  to  the  Christians  of  a  former  genera- 
tion and  so  much  used  even  now  in  some  of  the  far-off 
country  places.  This  pulpit,  as  it  proved,  was  somewhat  un- 
steady on  its  pins.  He  took  his  text  from  that  Scripture 
which  says :  "  Lo,  I  come  in  the  volume  of  the  book  to  do 
thy  will,  O  God !  "  All  who  have  ever  heard  the  Hardshell 
Baptists  preach  know  that  they  are  quite  vociferous  in  their 
exhortations.  I  was  quite  a  little  boy.  I  could  not  have 
been  over  three  years  old,  I  take  it,  but  I  was  very  earnest 
and  rapt  in  attention  upon  what  the  preacher  was  saying. 
I  was  cuddled  up  on  a  bench  with  my  head  in  my  mother's 


12         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

lap,  but  I  was  not  asleep.  When  the  dear  old  minister 
reached  the  climax  of  his  gesticulations  and  vociferations, 
he  verily  yelled  out  his  text,  "  Lo,  I  come  in  the  volume  of 
the  book !  "  and  as  the  word  "  book  "  was  escaping  his  lips, 
the  old  pulpit  took  a  forward  lurch  and  down  came  pulpit, 
preacher,  Bible,  water  pitcher  and  all. 

We  thought  he  had  "  come  in  the  volume  of  the  book  " 
for  the  last  time,  but  he  arose  unharmed.  He  was  some- 
what abashed,  it  is  true,  but  still  smiling,  and  while  the  inci- 
dent broke  up  the  meeting,  it  broke  none  of  his  bones. 

At  another  time,  at  that  same  meeting-house,  a  disaster 
occurred  concerning  me.  I  was  reposing  in  a  deacon-like 
slumber  on  the  little  bench  that  sat  right  in  front  of  this 
same  pulpit,  which  had  been  repaired  and  steadied,  and 
while  I  was  soundly  sleeping,  I  tumbled  off  the  bench  and 
fell  prone  upon  the  floor.  This  excited  the  congregation 
very  materially  and  excited  one  little  boy  to  the  extent  that 
I  have  never  since  allowed  myself  to  fall  asleep  horizontally 
while  the  service  was  in  progress. 

Upshur  County  is  a  white-sandy,  red-clay,  piney-woods, 
sweet-gum,  sasafras-bark  country.  It  has  now  become 
quite  distinguished  as  a  home  for  the  Elberta  peach  and 
other  sandy  land  products,  but  then  the  Elberta  had  never 
been  heard  of  and  all  that  we  grew  down  in  that  part  of 
Texas  were  water-melons,  vegetables,  corn,  cotton  and 
sugar  cane.  The  crop  that  we  grew  on  our  little  rented 
farm  consisted  chiefly  of  corn.  It  was  not  profitable  at  that 
time  to  grow  cotton.  The  cotton  gin  had  not  yet  made  its 
advent  into  those  ends  of  the  earth,  and  the  only  way  that 
cotton  was  picked  from  the  seed  was  with  the  fingers  of 
women  and  children — I  mean  ginned.  Of  course,  we  picked 
the  cotton  after  the  same  style  as  cotton  is  picked  in  the 
fields  now,  but  we  really  and  truly  picked  the  cotton  oflF  the 
seed.  My  mother  owned  cards,  slays  and  a  loom.  She  was 
a  capable  seamstress  and  made  all  of  our  clothing.    During 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  13 

the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  which  was  just  then  beginning, 
she  not  only  fashioned  the  clothing  from  the  cloth,  but  she 
carded  the  cotton  and  spun  the  thread  and  then  from  the 
thread  wove  the  cloth  from  which  she  made  our  clothes. 

Many  is  the  time  that  I  have  helped  her  as  she  used  the 
shuttle  and  wove  the  cloth,  and  I  seem  now,  as  I  am  writ- 
ing down  these  words,  to  hear  the  hum  of  the  old  spinning 
wheel  as  she  marches  back  and  forth  on  the  plain  pine  lum- 
ber floor,  busying  herself  in  spinning  the  thread  that  was  to 
make  the  cloth  from  which  we  were  to  have  our  new  suits 
of  roundabouts  and  other  garments. 

At  that  time  my  mother  seemed  to  me  to  be  an  old  woman, 
but  as  I  look  back  upon  it  and  count  the  years,  I  know  that 
she  was  only  thirty-two  or  three  years  old.  She  was  a  very 
young  woman  as  we  count  age  these  days,  although  then 
she  was  the  mother  of  four  children,  I  being  the  youngest  of 
the  four. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  I  attended  my  first  school. 
It  was  taught  by  my  uncle,  John  Cranfill,  who  was  the  best 
educated  one  of  that  family.  He  had  an  insatiable  thirst 
for  knowledge  and  by  some  means  had  enjoyed  better  ad- 
vantages in  the  old  Kentucky  home  than  had  my  father  and 
the  older  sons.  My  father  was  not  learned,  so  far  as  book 
knowledge  went,  but  in  the  high  sense  of  the  term  he  was 
an  educated  man.  He  did  not  learn  to  write  until  he  was  a 
grown  man,  and  his  ability  to  read  did  not  come  to  him  until 
he  was  almost  grown.  However,  he  was  a  great  lover  of 
books  and  his  quest  for  knowledge  abode  with  him  until 
his  last  days  came.  So  great  was  his  love  of  books  that  he 
made  it  a  point  to  buy  a  book  every  chance  he  got.  When- 
ever there  was  a  sale  in  the  neighborhood,  he  always  went 
to  the  sale  and  bought  the  books.  It  was  in  that  way  that 
he  accumulated  such  a  splendid  library.  It  was  a  kind  of 
"  Old  Curiosity  Shop  "  of  a  library,  in  that  there  was  no 
co-ordination  in  the  selection  of  the  books,  but  notwith- 


14         DR.  J.  B;  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

standing  that  fact^  he  accumulated  one  of  the  finest  libraries 
known  in  any  country  home  in  Texas  in  his  day.  He  never 
learned  to  cipher  or  extract  the  cube  root,  but  he  could  ex- 
tract more  good,  common,  hard  horse  sense  out  of  a  book 
than  any  man  you  would  meet  in  a  day's  journey. 

Uncle  John  kept  a  little  country  school  near  Calloway  be- 
fore he  enlisted  in  the  army,  and  I  was  the  tiniest  boy  in 
the  school.  I  remember  how  loving  and  kind  he  was  as  he 
taught  me  my  A  B  C's.  I  had  an  old  blue  back  Webster 
spelling  book  and  he  took  great  pains  to  induct  me  into  the 
mysteries  of  my  first  school  experiences.  The  school  did 
not  last  for  long,  because  the  call  of  his  country  came  and 
he  enlisted  in  the  Confederate  army.  A  little  later  my 
father  went  out,  too,  and  between  the  two  went  my  Uncle 
Tom,  who  was  the  most  ardent  secessionist  in  the  family. 
My  father  was  a  Union  man.  He  did  not  believe  that  we 
should  ever  have  had  a  Civil  War.  He  did  not  agree  with 
Jefferson  Davis  nor  with  those  hot-heads  in  the  South  who 
felt  that  the  South  should  secede  from  the  Union.  He  was 
a  great  admirer  of  Sam  Houston,  who  at  that  time  was  the 
leading  citizen  of  Texas.  Sam  Houston  was  a  Union  man 
and  one  of  the  last  acts  of  his  life  was  to  make  a  speech 
against  secession.  So  unpopular  did  he  become  that  he  was 
almost  contemned  by  the  men  who  had  fought  with  him  at 
the  battle  of  San  Jacinto  and  who  had  afterwards  elevated 
him  to  the  presidency  of  the  Texas  Republic. 

My  Uncle  Tom  was  a  Jeff  Davis  man  to  his  heart's  core. 
He  went  out  early  and  fought  long  and  heartily  for  the 
Stars  and  Bars.  My  Uncle  John  went,  too,  and  my  father 
went,  but  my  father  went  just  as  many  another  Southern 
patriot  went,  because  he  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  sep- 
aration from  the  men  he  loved  and  with  whom  he  so  long 
had  labored. 

I  do  not  remember  when  Uncle  John's  school  broke  up, 
but  I  know  it  was  the  war  that  broke  it  up,  and  I  have  be- 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  15 

fore  me  now  his  soldierly  form  and  bearing  as  he  donned 
his  gray  Confederate  suit  and  started  for  the  army.  My 
Uncle  John  was  a  masterful  man  in  every  way.  In  some 
ways  he  was  the  brightest  of  the  six  brothers  who  fared 
forth  from  the  old  Kentucky  home. 

I  have  heard  my  father  relate  an  incident  which  illus- 
trates Uncle  John's  magnificent  sense  of  humor.  As  I  have 
hitherto  related,  my  father  moved  from  Kentucky  to  Up- 
shur County,  then  from  Upshur  County  to  Denton  County, 
from  Denton  County  to  Parker  County,  and  from  Parker 
County  back  to  Upshur  County.  My  Uncle  John  was  with 
him  on  all  these  journeys.  Old  Texans  who  recall  the  wan- 
derings of  the  early  settlers  will  remember  how  common- 
place it  was  for  them,  when  they  met  out  on  the  road,  to  ask 
each  other  many  questions.    The  common  salutation  was : 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  Where  are  you  from  ?  Where  are 
you  going  ?  What  was  your  name  in  the  old  States  ?  How 
many  children  have  you  ?  "  etc.,  etc. 

As  my  father  and  Uncle  John  and  the  lest  were  moving 
back  from  Parker  County  to  Upshur  County,  they  were  met 
by  one  of  these  inquisitive  pioneers.  He  looked  at  my  Uncle 
John — great,  tall,  stalwart  young  fellow  that  he  was — and 
asked : 

"  Where  are  you  from  ?  "  - 

My  Uncle  John  replied: 

"  We  are  from  everywhere  else  but  here,  and  we  are  try- 
ing to  get  away  from  here  just  as  fas  as  we  can." 

My  Uncle  John  fought  through  the  war  and  w^as  killed  at 
the  battle  of  Mansfield,  La.  It  was  in  one  of  the  very  last 
engagements  of  the  Civil  War  that  my  Uncle  John  received 
his  mortal  wound.  He  lived  only  a  few  days  and  died  glory- 
ing in  the  fact  that  he  had  given  his  life  for  his  country. 

As  I  have  said  before,  he  was  a  magnificent  looking  man. 
He  had  but  recently  married  when  the  war  came  on,  and 
when  he  left  home,  he  left  his  dress  suit,  his  top  hat  and  his 


16         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

other  fine  doings  back  at  home  for  his  wife  to  keep  for  him. 
It  was  not  long  after  his  death  before  his  widow  married 
again.  I  can  never  forget  the  indignation  that  I  felt  when  I 
saw  her  second  husband  wearing  my  Uncle  John's  clothing 
and  his  hat.  I  had  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  a  feeling  that 
I  wanted  to  commit  a  murder.  I  was  but  a  little  boy.  I 
could  not  have  been  more  than  seven  years  old,  but  the  mem- 
ory of  that  man  wearing  Uncle  John's  fine  clothes  and  his 
silk  hat  lingers  with  me  as  one  of  the  pathetic  incidents  of 
my  child  life. 

My  father  took  sick  when  he  was  in  the  army.  The  com- 
pany of  which  he  was  a  member  had  struck  camp  near  Tyler, 
in  Smith  County.  The  camp  was  known  as  Camp  Ford. 
There  may  be  soldiers  in  Eastern  Texas  who  were  members 
of  his  company  who  will  remember  this  old  camp.  He  was 
so  very  ill  that  it  was  thought  he  would  die,  so  my  mother 
took  us  four  children  and  after  a  long  and  tiresome  journey 
in  an  ox  wagon,  we  reached  the  camp  where  my  father  was 
sick.  He  was  suffering  from  a  form  of  heart  trouble.  Of 
course  the  privations  of  army  life  had  much  to  do  with  his 
illness,  but  he  was  sick  besides,  and  there  never  was  a  glad- 
der, happier  soldier  in  the  army  than  my  father  was  when 
he  saw  us  come  into  the  little  tent  where  he  lay  prostrate 
on  his  bed. 

We  staid  in  Camp  Ford  six  weeks.  That  was  the  only 
army  life  experience  I  ever  had.  I  look  back  upon  it  now 
with  tears.  I  was  but  six  years  old,  and  there  were  many 
of  the  dear,  grizzled  Confederate  soldiers  there  who  had 
been  long  from  home  and  whose  hearts  were  hungry  for 
the  love  and  caresses  of  a  little  child.  Those  soldiers  liter- 
ally spoiled  me  to  death.  They  let  me  ride  their  horses ;  they 
picked  blackberries  for  me ;  they  gave  me  such  little  delica- 
cies as  they  could  command,  and  in  every  way  showed  me 
the  sweetest,  dearest  and  kindest  attention  that  any  little  boy 
ever  enjoyed.     I  remember  that  during  the  time  we  had  a 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  17 

mock  runaway  soldier  to  deal  with.  He  made  out  that  he 
was  going  to  desert,  and  away  he  went  out  through  the 
woods,  with  the  other  soldiers  after  him.  One  of  the  great 
big  soldiers  took  me  on  his  back  and  let  me  run  along  with 
the  rest,  and  such  a  merry  chase  we  had ! 

These  dear  fellows  gave  me  tobacco-stamps  and  told  me 
it  was  money;  they  gave  me  Confederate  bills  and  told  me 
how  very,  very  valuable  they  were,  and  in  every  way  they 
not  only  loved  and  petted  me,  but  they  teased  me  as  well. 

It  will  not  again  perhaps  become  apropos  in  this  chron- 
icle to  say  a  word  about  our  Southern  soldiery.  To  my  mind 
they  were  the  most  charming,  lovely,  courageous  men  that 
ever  fared  forth  upon  a  hopeless  quest.  They  were  every 
inch  men  to  the  manner  born.  They  were  generous,  noble, 
brave  and  true,  and  while  many  of  them  fought,  as  my 
father  did,  against  their  heart  convictions,  yet  they  went 
forth  panoplied  and  ready  for  the  fray  to  do  battle  for  their 
country.  Stonewall  Jackson  is  my  ideal  soldier.  I  venerate 
Robert  E.  Lee,  but  I  do  not  think  that  any  Southern  general 
deserves  to  outclass  Stonewall  Jackson.  There  were,  how- 
ever, many  Stonewall  Jacksons  in  the  private  ranks — men 
who  had  not  had  the  opportunities  of  military  training  at 
West  Point,  but  men,  nevertheless,  who  had  in  them  all  the 
elements  that  made  Stonewall  Jackson  great.  I  love  the 
Southern  soldiers.  There  is  not  one  now  of  the  great  South- 
ern army,  however  old  and  however  bent  his  frame,  but 
commands  my  heartiest  respect.  I  love  them  for  the  things 
they  loved,  and  I  love  them  for  the  things  for  which  they 
fought.  If  I  had  been  a  grown  man  then,  I  would  have  had 
exactly  the  views  my  father  held.  I  never  believed  in 
slavery ;  I  never  believed  in  secession ;  I  never  believed  anj 
great  deal  in  the  statesmanship  of  Jeff  Davis,  although  1 
doubted  not  his  patriotism  nor  his  honor,  and  I  never  be- 
lieved in  any  of  the  steps  that  our  Southern  leaders  took  in 


18 


DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL^S  CHRONICLE 


the  direction  of  bringing  about  the  Civil  War.  I  do  believe 
in  the  memory  of  the  soldiers  that  are  gone  and  in  the 
goodness  and  patriotism  of  the  men  yet  left  among  us. 


Ill 


SOME  OTHER  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  MY 
CHILDHOOD 

I  HAVE  not  lived  in  Eastern  Texas  since  we  left  there 
January  21,  1866,  but  I  have  a  tender  recollection  of 
our  residence  there  for  the  five  years  from  1861  to 
1866.  I  never  can  forget  the  sweet  gum  trees,  the  sasafras 
bark,  the  hickory  nuts  or  the  blackberry  patches  that  so 
charmed  our  childish  hearts.  I  would  give  much  for  a  good 
chew  of  sweet  gum  now,  and  my  heart  has  longed  full  many 
a  time  for  a  supply  of  the  old  scaly-bark  hickory  nuts  that 
we  used  to  gather  in  old  Upshur  County,  and  sasafras  tea 
was  a  luxury  in  war  time — a  luxury  we  enjoyed  to  the  full- 
est possible  extent.  The  sasafras  roots  jutted  out  from  the 
sides  of  the  gulleys  everywhere,  and  all  we  had  to  do  was  to 
gather  them  and  scale  the  bark.  We  were  then  ready  for 
the  nicest  beverage  that  was  available  during  the  time  of 
war. 

Speaking  of  the  war,  I  must  recite  in  this  connection  the 
courageous  manner  in  which  my  mother  met  the  trials  and 
tribulations  of  that  unhappy  time.  We  were  poor  people 
before  the  war.  My  father  had  studied  medicine  and  was 
practicing  before  the  war  began.  He  had  not  accumulated 
much,  but  we  had  our  cow,  our  horses  and  had  gathered 
together  some  little  luxuries.  The  home  in  which  we  lived 
was  a  rented  home,  but  my  father  was  arranging  to  buy  a 
home.  We  owned  no  slaves.  The  only  negro  that  we  ever 
had  was  the  one  we  had  when  the  war  broke  out,  whose 
name  was  Till.     She  was  hired  from  some  slave-owner  for 

19 


20         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

an  annual  rental,  but  I  do  not  remember  the  amount  that 
my  father  paid  for  her.  She  staid  with  us  until  the  war 
was  over  and  for  some  years  afterwards,  but  none  of  our 
family,  so  far  as  I  knew,  were  ever  slave-holders  at  any 
time. 

My  mother  was  a  devout  Christian.  When  the  war  be- 
gan, she  clung  more  closely  to  her  Bible  and  her  religion 
than  she  had  ever  done  before.  There  were  only  five  of 
us  in  family.  Counting  the  colored  woman  that  we  had, 
there  were  six.  There  was  no  man  about  the  house.  Every 
responsibility  for  the  conduct  of  the  home  fell  upon  my 
dear,  sweet  little  mother.  She  was  a  small  woman,  never 
in  her  life  weighing  over  ninety  pounds,  but  she  was  a  very 
bundle  of  energy  and  determination.  Every  night  during 
the  great  war,  when  my  father  was  away,  my  dear  mother 
would  take  the  family  Bible  from  the  table,  would  read  a 
chapter  to  us  little  ones  gathered  about  her  knee  and  would 
then  bow  in  family  prayer.  She  carried  us  up  to  God,  ask- 
ing for  His  help,  for  His  guidance,  for  His  protecting  love 
and  care,  and  then  she  would  pray  for  father,  who  was 
away,  for  the  armies  of  the  South,  for  the  reign  of  God's 
great  grace  everywhere  and  for  a  final  triumph  of  the  right. 
In  all  the  experiences  of  my  child  life,  and  indeed,  in  all  of 
those  of  later  years,  nothing  has  ever  come  to  bless  my  soul 
more  graciously  than  these  Scripture  readings  and  these 
prayers  of  my  sweet  mother.  She  gave  us  an  object  lesson 
in  religion  that  will  linger  with  me  to  my  dying  day  and  will 
gladden  me  when  my  redeemed  spirit  is  with  God. 

Never,  in  all  my  wanderings  in  after  years,  when  I  was  a 
wild,  reckless,  thoughtless  Texas  cowboy,  did  I  entirely  get 
away  from  this  devotion  of  my  mother.  At  another  time, 
far  later  along  in  my  youthful  years,  when  I  was  out  plow- 
ing in  the  field,  I  heard  a  voice  but  I  could  not  locate  the 
voice,  and  creeping  up  a  little  closer  still,  I  heard  her  pray- 
ing for  me.    She  called  my  name,  she  pleaded  with  God  to 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  21 

have  mercy  upon  her  boy,  to  make  him  a  good  man,  to  cause 
his  life  to  be  a  blessing  to  the  world. 

These  incidents  I  am  setting  down  here  because  I  cherish 
them  with  a  grateful  heart,  and  because  I  feel  that  their  re- 
cital may  be  helpful  to  other  mothers  and  to  other  sons,  and 
if  I  may  be  pardoned  a  word  of  preachment  as  I  go  on  with 
this  chronicle,  I  exhort  mothers  who  may  read  what  I  am 
here  writing  down  to  so  live  in  the  presence  of  their  chil- 
dren that  those  children  will  look  back  upon  their  childhood 
lives  as  the  happiest  period,  and  richest  in  sacred  memories 
they  can  ever  have.  Even  if  I  had  wandered  farther  still 
than  I  ever  went  in  my  wild  cowboy  life,  I  would  never  have 
been  able  to  get  away  from  the  impression  made  upon  my 
young  heart  when,  as  a  very  little  child,  I  knelt  in  that  little 
family  prayer  meeting  in  the  old  East  Texas  land. 

My  father  was  not  wounded  in  the  army,  but  when  he 
returned,  his  health  seemed  almost  shattered.  He  had  been 
through  some  hard  campaigns  and  when  the  war  was  over 
he  came  back  to  find  that  what  little  he  had  was  gone,  and, 
like  the  average  Confederate  soldier,  he  had  to  begin  his 
entire  life  anew.  He  had  his  faithful  little  wife  and  his 
brood  of  children,  but  beyond  that,  nothing.  However,  my 
father  was  the  thriftiest  man  I  ever  knew.  I  make  no  ex- 
ceptions. I  believe  if  he  had  been  suddenly  let  down  into  the 
heart  of  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  he  would  have  soon  had  a 
good  horse,  a  wagon  and  other  equipment  for  service. 
Exactly  this  happened  to  him  after  his  return  from  the  Con- 
federate army.  He  went  immediately  to  work  and  got  to- 
gether two  teams — one  team  of  horses  and  one  of  oxen.  I 
neglected  to  tell  you  that  he  did  bring  back  home  from  the 
army  his  fine  blooded  saddle  horse.  I  wonder  how  that  ever 
happened,  but  it  was  true.  By  some  means,  he  kept  his 
horse  all  through  the  war,  and  when  he  came  back,  the  horse 
was  in  fairly  good  condition.  This  was  a  stock  of  horses 
that  he  secured  in  Parker  County,  and  he  kept  that  same 


22         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

breed  of  horses  unto  his  dying  day.  From  1858  to  1903  is 
a  long  stretch  of  years,  and  yet  up  to  within  a  year  of  his 
death,  he  owned  some  of  this  same  blood  of  horses. 

When  he  had  gotten  his  new  belongings  together,  he 
started  forth  with  his  little  family  to  move  again.  We  left 
Calloway  January  21,  1866. 

The  entire  state  was  in  an  unsettled  condition.  There 
were  roving  bands  of  soldiers  from  both  armies.  The  war 
had  turned  loose  upon  this  new  country  many  strange  and 
desperate  men.  .  My  father  had  with  him  one  young  man 
friend,  whose  name  I  do  not  now  recall.  He  was  a  faithful 
man  and  my  father  esteemed  him  highly.  He,  together  with 
our  own  little  family  and  the  negro  woman,  constituted  the 
party.  We  had  the  two  teams,  one  a  two-horse  team  and 
the  other  of  two  oxen.  The  young  man  rode  the  fine  big 
horse  my  father  loved  so  well.  My  father  drove  the  horse 
team,  and  the  ox  team  was  driven  by  turns  by  the  colored 
woman  and  my  brother. 

On  a  certain  day  as  we  were  entering  Leon  County,  we 
missed  our  way.  It  seemed  a  strange  coincidence  that  every 
man  and  every  bunch  of  men  we  met  seemed  to  tell  us  the 
wrong  road.  It  aroused  my  father's  suspicions.  He  soon 
imbibed  the  idea  that  these  men  had  been  following  us  and 
had  gotten  in  ahead  of  us  to  throw  us  off  the  route  so  as 
to  rob  us  of  our  horses  and  what  little  belongings  of  value 
we  had.  Towards  evening,  my  father,  in  absolute  defiance 
of  all  the  directions  of  all  the  men  we  had  met,  used  his 
own  judgment  and  again  we  found  ourselves  in  the  main 
thoroughfare.  It  was  then  quite  late  and  it  was  necessary 
for  us  to  find  a  camping  place.  This  we  did  in  a  little  motte 
of  elm  trees  where  we  found  an  abandoned  house  that  had 
been  used  during  the  Civil  War,  but  now  was  vacant.  My 
mother  found  blood  on  the  floor  and  the  walls,  and  when 
we  went  to  draw  water  from  the  well,  our  bucket  struck 
something  solid.     We  became  afraid  that  some  man  had 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  23 

been  murdered  in  the  house  and  thrown  into  the  well.  These 
things  were  discussed  at  supper,  and  the  incidents  of  the 
day,  together  with  the  weird  surroundings  of  the  place,  gen- 
dered a  feeling  of  insecurity. 

About  ten  o'clock  that  night,  my  father  awoke,  and  I, 
who  was  sleeping  in  the  wagon  with  my  father  and  mother, 
heard  him  wake  my  mother  and  begin  to  tell  her  of  his 
dream.  He  said  he  had  dreamed  that  we  had  been  attacked 
by  a  band  of  robbers.  He  had  been  able  to  rout  all  the  rob- 
bers but  one  very  large  woman,  who  withstood  all  of  his 
assaults.  He  had  cut  the  muscles  in  her  arms  with  his 
bowie  knife  and  had  shot  her,  but  nothing  he  did  served  to 
check  her  advance.    With  that  he  awoke. 

The  young  man  who  was  journeying  with  us  heard  him 
talking  to  my  mother,  but  was  so  far  away  he  could  not 
hear  what  he  said.  Being  himself  aroused,  however,  he  ap- 
proached our  wagon  and  told  my  father  that  he  had  had  a 
very  strange  dream,  whereupon  he  recited  exactly  the  same 
dream  my  father  had  dreamed.  The  coincidence  was  so 
sensationally  suggestive  that  after  a  little  counsel  together, 
my  father  and  the  young  man  and  my  mother  decided  that 
we  would  arouse  all  of  the  family,  harness  up  our  teams  and 
drive  on.  It  was  a  bright  winter  night.  The  moon  was 
full,  and  in  a  few  minutes  every  one  of  us,  children,  dogs, 
horses,  oxen,  men  and  all,  were  as  wide  awake  as  we  ever 
had  been  in  our  whole  lives,  and  we  took  the  road  with  great 
eagerness.  I  never  saw  oxen  travel  so.  Never  did  I  see 
horses  so  alert  to  get  away,  and  the  whole  bunch  of  us 
seemed  rejoiced  in  the  thought  of  going  forward.  We  trav- 
eled twenty  miles  before  we  stopped  and  struck  camp  some 
little  while  after  daylight  at  a  point  near  Cotton  Gin,  Free- 
stone County.  We  never  knew  whether  the  robbers  came 
that  night  or  not.  If  they  came,  their  birds  had  flown,  and 
whether  there  was  real  danger  or  not,  we  never  knew. 

In  his  move,  my  father  was  making  for  Comal  County. 


24         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Uncle  Charles  Galloway  had  moved  to  Comal  before  the 
Civil  War  and  had  settled  on  York's  Creek.  He  and  a  num- 
ber of  his  sons  were  living  there  and  my  father  was  journey- 
ing to  settle  near  him.  We  rented  land  the  first  year  from  a 
man  named  Davis.  The  land  had  not  been  cultivated  dur- 
ing the  war.  It  had  grown  up  in  cockleburs  and  weeds  of 
various  kinds,  and  rattlesnakes  and  other  reptiles  abounded 
everywhere.  I  never  knew,  in  all  my  rattlesnake  experi- 
ences, of  so  many  of  the  genus  crotalus  as  we  found  in  this 
Comal  County  farm;  but  every  one  of  us  entered  upon  the 
work  with  zest  and  earnestness.  I  was  big  enough  to  wield 
a  hoe,  and  with  the  negro  woman,  my  brother  and  my  father, 
we  soon  had  cleaned  up  enough  land  on  which  to  plant  a 
crop.  We  planted  it  in  corn  and  cotton.  Happily,  not  one 
of  us  were  bitten  by  a  rattlesnake,  but  our  escapes  were 
almost  miraculous.  Our  negro  woman  cut  off  the  head  of 
a  rattlesnake  and  the  snake,  head  and  all,  was  dead.  She 
picked  up  the  snake's  head  to  look  at  it,  and  by  some  means 
became  inoculated  with  a  slight  amount  of  the  virus.  It 
took  very  prompt  attention  on  my  father's  part  to  save  her 
life. 

York's  Creek  was  about  equidistant  from  San  Marcos  and 
New  Braunfels,  being  about  eight  miles  from  each  point. 
My  father  did  most  of  his  trading  at  the  latter  point,  but  fre- 
quently went  to  San  Marcos.  As  soon  as  the  crop  was 
pitched,  he  replenished  his  stock  of  medicines  and  let  it  be 
known  that  there  was  a  doctor  in  that  section  of  the  county. 
He  soon  began  to  establish  a  medical  practice  in  connection 
with  his  farming  operations,  and  so,  on  the  whole,  it  was 
not  a  disastrous  year  for  us.  We  made  fairly  good  crops, 
both  of  corn  and  cotton,  and  inasmuch  as  cotton  was  25  cents 
a  pound,  we  sold  it  to  good  advantage  and  found  ourselves, 
in  the  fall  of  the  year,  much  better  off  than  we  were  at  the 
beginning. 

Comal  County  is  a  prickly  pear  county.    That  is  what  we 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  25 

called  them,  though  now  they  are  called  cactus.  It  had  been 
a  very  hard  time  for  the  cattle.  There  had  been  no  proven- 
der made  in  several  years  and  so  the  old  time  Texans  util- 
ized the  cacti  as  feed  for  their  cattle.  I  was  one  of  the 
boys  that  helped  to  do  it.  We  cut  bunches  of  cacti  down 
even  with  the  ground,  built  bonfires  of  mesquite  twigs  and 
bushes,  and  after  having  pierced  the  prickly  pear  with  pitch- 
forks, we  burned  the  thorns  off  and  gave  it  to  the  cattle. 
They  ate  it  voraciously  and  it  undoubtedly  saved  the  lives 
of  thousands  of  head  of  stock. 

Mr.  Davis,  our  landlord,  had  a  boy  named  Billy.  He  was 
my  playmate,  but  he  was  four  or  five  years  older  than  I.  He 
was  a  big  enough  boy  to  do  a  man's  work,  but  I  was  not.  I 
loved  play  with  all  my  heart  and  the  great  game  that  we 
had  in  those  days  was  mumble-peg.  It  was  played  by  throw- 
ing a  knife  into  prickly  pear  leaves.  The  knife  would  stick 
in  the  prickly  pear,  if  it  was  correctly  thrown,  and  after  the 
game  was  played,  the  boy  that  lost  had  to  "  root  the  peg." 
The  peg  was  a  little  stick  sharpened  to  a  point  and  driven  in 
the  ground.  The  boy  that  was  victorious  had  a  right  to 
drive  the  peg.  He  could  strike  it  two  strokes  with  his  knife 
handle  with  his  eyes  open  and  had  to  strike  the  last  stroke 
with  his  eyes  shut.  Sometimes  the  peg  was  driven  down 
into  the  dirt  and  the  boy  had  to  grabble  in  the  dirt  in  order 
to  get  it  up,  which  he  did  by  pulling  it  up  with  his  teeth. 

One  day,  when  Billy  and  I  were  finishing  a  game  of  mum- 
ble-peg, Billy's  father,  who  had  set  the  young  man  to  a  much 
more  important  task  and  had  thus  found  him  "  playing 
hookey  "  from  his  work,  said  to  him :  "  Ah !  And  here  you 
are  again  playing  mumble-peg.  It  seems  to  me  that  your 
highest  ambition  in  life  will  always  be  that  of  mumbling  the 
peg."    And  the  father's  sad  prognostication  came  true. 

That  fall  my  father  moved  again.  If  he  had  remained  in 
any  one  place  in  Texas  where  he  originally  settled,  he  would 
have  become  a  man  of  wealth.    As  it  was,  he  lost  so  much  in 


26         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

moving  that  he  was  never  able  to  accumulate  any  great 
amount  of  money  or  property.  This  time  we  moved  down 
into  the  edge  of  Gonzales  County  close  to  where  it  joins 
Caldwell.  The  point  was  within  three  miles  of  where  Luling 
now  stands.  At  that  time  no  railway  had  been  projected 
through  that  part  of  Texas.  The  nearest  railway  point  was 
Columbus,  about  one  hundred  miles  away.  In  that  section 
were  some  old-time  Kentucky  friends  of  my  father.  There 
were  Henry  Scoggins  and  Henry  Wade  and  old  Uncle  Billy 
Wade  and  Mrs.  Zillah  Hale,  who  was  the  widowed  daugh- 
ter of  Uncle  Billy  Wade.  All  of  these  he  had  known  in  his 
old  Kentucky  home,  and  I  think  that  is  one  reason  why  he 
moved  down  into  that  section  of  Texas. 

There  are  some  memories  of  Comal  County  that  I  shall 
always  cherish.  The  farm  we  tended  that  year  was  on  the 
old  San  Antonio  road.  This  was  the  great  thoroughfare 
between  Nacogdoches  and  the  boundless  West.  It  was  the 
road  over  which  the  Texas  troops  journeyed  when  they  went 
to  their  immolation  in  the  Alamo.  Along  this  road  was  the 
great  frontier  telegraph  line  that  stretched  from  the  East  to 
San  Antonio  and  beyond.  There  comes  down  to  us  a  story 
from  those  frontier  times  that  may  be  of  interest  to  the 
reader. 

Tom  Ochiltree  was  a  remarkable  character.  He  was  born 
in  Eastern  Texas,  but  belonged  to  all  Texas  and  was  withal 
a  thorough  cosmopolitan.  At  one  time  Ochiltree  was  a  re- 
porter on  The  Galveston  News.  He  went  out  West  to  give 
the  details  of  a  feud  in  which  a  number  of  lives  had  been 
sacrificed.  Telegraph  tolls  were  ten  cents  a  word.  When 
Ochiltree  reached  the  end  of  the  telegraph  line,  he  found 
the  following  message  from  The  News: 

"  Wire  us  the  facts.  We  will  get  up  the  embellishments 
in  the  office." 

Whereupon  Ochiltree  at  once  fired  this  answer  back  at 
them: 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD  27 

"  Go  to  the  devil !  I  will  furnish  the  embellishments  and 
you  can  get  up  the  facts  in  the  office." 

I  do  not  vouch  for  the  authenticity  of  this  story,  but  I 
remember  the  old  frontier  telegraph  line  under  which  I 
lounged  on  many  a  summer  day,  as  I  listened  to  its  wierd 
music  while  the  messages  were  carrying  their  news  of  cheer 
and  tragedy. 

It  was  in  Comal  County  that  my  mother  taught  me  to 
read.  I  still  had  the  blue  back  Webster  speller  and  we 
bought  a  new  McGuffey's  First  Reader.  The  First  Reader 
of  that  period  was  fully  as  elaborate  and  as  difficult  as  the 
Second  or  Third  Reader  of  school  book  lore  is  now.  I  went 
into  books  like  a  fish  goes  into  water,  and  found  no  difficulty 
in  mastering  the  arts  of  reading,  writing  and  spelling.  I 
cannot  remember  when  I  learned  to  punctuate  or  capitalize. 
I  absorbed  this  knowledge  from  the  books  I  read.  When  I 
reached  composition  and  rhetoric,  I  found  that  I  had  already 
known  the  very  rudiments  they  taught.  Education  in  those 
good  old  text  books  was  of  a  better  quality  than  the  training 
our  children  are  receiving  now.  While  the  text  books  were 
a  little  more  difficult,  their  work  amounted  to  much  more 
than  the  school  work  of  the  present  time.  I  am  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  the  average  graduate  of  our  colleges  of 
today  is  sadly  lacking  in  the  very  rudiments  my  mother 
taught  me. 

It  was  not  difficult  for  me  to  understand  punctuation, 
capitalization  and  spelling,  and  in  this  fact  was  a  prophecy 
of  my  future  years.  Newspaper  men  are  born.  Like  poets, 
they  come  into  the  world  without  any  heralding  and  with 
instincts  and  intuitions  that  fit  them  for  their  chosen  task. 
God  makes  them  and  in  the  highest  sense  equips  them  for 
their  life  estate. 

It  was  not  long  before  I  mastered,  "Twinkle,  twinkle,  lit- 


28 


DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 


tie  star,"  and  all  those  grand  old  poems  and  stories  with  the 
morals  that  dear  old  McGuffey  gave  to  us,  and  I  went  on 
through  the  spelling  book  clear  into  the  reading  part  where 
the  old  man  was  chunking  the  boy  out  of  the  apple  tree  with 
clods,  along  there  somewhere  with  "  Old  Tray  "  that  fell 
into  bad  company,  and  so  there  began  the  ground-work  of 
such  intellectual  culture  as  I  afterwards  achieved. 


IV 
DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY 

WHEN  my  father  reached  the  new  field  of  opera- 
tion, he  found  his  old  friends  a  great  help  to  him 
in  establishing  a  medical  practice.  He  did  not  at- 
tempt to  farm  when  he  reached  Gonzales  County.  We  only 
had  a  small  field  there.  He  branched  out  into  growing  sheep, 
cattle  and  horses,  but  gave  most  of  his  time  to  the  practice 
of  medicine.  There  was  much  sickness  and  the  people  had 
begun  again  to  be  prosperous.  United  States  currency  was 
of  little  value,  Confederate  money  was  all  dead,  hence  most 
accounts  were  paid  in  gold.  Cotton  was  25  cents  a  pound 
and  even  the  negroes  were  fortunate  in  making  excellent 
crops.  Father  had  a  large  medical  practice  and  was  away 
from  home  most  of  the  day  and  night.  He  was  a  magnificent 
collector  and  people  somehow  loved  to  pay  him  what  they 
owed  him.  His  professional  earnings  were  placed  in  shot- 
sacks  and  kept  very  secretly. 

Upon  one  occasion,  when  mother  and  father  wanted  to 
know  exactly  how  much  money  they  had,  they  asked  all  of 
the  children  to  leave  the  one  room  in  which  we  lived,  so 
that  they  could  attend  to  some  private  matters  of  their  own. 
I  was  curious  to  know  what  these  matters  were,  so  I  peeped 
through  a  hole  in  the  wall  where  a  chink  had  fallen  out 
and  saw  them  counting  the  gold.  How  much  they  had,  I  do 
not  know,  but  when  we  got  down  into  Bastrop  County,  dur- 
ing Christmas  week  of  1868,  less  than  two  years  from  that 
time,  father  had  sufficient  funds  with  which  to  buy  a  modest 
farm. 

29 


30         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

One  of  father's  best  friends  was  Henry  Scoggins.  He 
was  a  gambler  and  a  whiskey  drinker,  yet  a  man  of  big- 
heartedness  and  generous  to  a  fault  to  his  friends.  He  was 
a  fighter  and  a  man  who  in  gentler  times  would  have  been 
called  a  desperado.  He  carried  his  weapons  all  the  time,  as 
all  the  Texans  in  that  time  did,  and  was  ready  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  either  shoot  or  be  shot.  During  our  stay  in  Gon- 
zales County,  he  was  shot  all  to  pieces  once  and  knocked  in 
the  head  another  time,  and  he  cut  the  throat  of  a  man  at 
another  time. 

One  night,  when  we  were  all  in  bed,  a  man  galloped  up 
to  our  gate  and  called  for  father.  We  soon  learned  that  it 
was  Jim  Scoggins,  old  man  Henry  Scoggins'  grown-up  son. 
We  were  all  alert  m  a  moment  and  I  heard  him  say  to 
father : 

"  Pa  and  I  have  just  been  in  a  big  fight  over  at  Johnson's 
store  and  I  have  killed  old  man  Sorrells." 

We  all  felt  very  sorry  for  him.  He  did  not  have  a  penny  in 
money,  but  he  was  riding  a  splendid  horse  and  of  course 
was  making  his  way  into  some  distant  county.  Father  loaned 
him  some  money  and  he  went  on  his  way.  We  rejoiced  next 
day  to  find  that  old  man  Sorrells  was  not  dead.  Young  Jim 
Scoggins  thought  he  had  cut  his  throat,  but  instead  he  had 
simply  cut  deeply  around  the  back  of  his  neck,  severing  some 
muscles  and  ligaments  but  penetrating  no  main  veins  or  ar- 
teries. The  whole  thing  came  about  through  a  row  between 
Henry  Scoggins  and  old  man  Sorrells.  They  had  been  drink- 
ing and  gambling  together  and  old  man  Sorrells  was  about 
to  kill  Henry  Scoggins  when  the  son  Jim  got  into  the  fight, 
with  the  result  I  have  stated. 

At  another  time,  at  a  horse  race  that  Henry  Scoggins  was 
conducting,  he  got  into  a  difficulty  with  the  man  on  the  other 
side  and  the  man  quickly  drew  his  gun  to  shoot  him.  Scog- 
gins darted  under  his  horse's  neck  and  the  man  fired.  He 
shot  only  one  time,  but  he  gave  Scoggins  six  distinct  and 


DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY      31 

separate  wounds.  He  was  all  doubled  and  twisted  up  under 
the  horse's  neck  and  that  bullet  did  more  execution,  not  to 
kill  him,  than  any  bullet  of  which  I  ever  knew.  It  was  hard 
work  for  my  father,  with  all  the  care  that  he  could  give 
him,  to  bring  his  old  friend  through,  but  he  entirely  recov- 
ered and  was  none  the  worse  for  his  dangerous  experience. 
In  many  respects  Henry  Scoggins  was  a  remarkable  char- 
acter. He  became  a  widower  and  courted  Mrs.  Zillah  Hale. 
They  had  known  each  other  in  their  childhood  in  Kentucky, 
and  now  they  were  each  alone.  Mrs.  Hale  was  the  most 
beautiful  woman  I  ever  saw  in  my  boyhood.  She  was  of 
the  Grecian  type  and  a  typical  Kentucky  beauty.  Henry 
Scoggins  besieged  her  to  marry  him.  She  was  perfectly 
aware  of  all  his  bad  habits  and  refused  to  marry  him.  He 
kept  on  courting  her.  She  kept  on  refusing  him.  He  made 
love  to  her  as  arduously  and  as  steadily  as  any  young  swain 
would  have  done,  always  with  the  result  that  he  came  away 
with  the  mitten.  He  was  quite  profane.  One  day,  after 
Mrs.  Hale  had  refused  five  times  to  marry  him,  he  went 
again  to  see  her.  He  felt  quite  indignant  on  account  of  the 
way  she  had  treated  him.  Going  into  her  house  and  seating 
himself,  he  turned  to  her  and  said : 

"  Zillah,  I  want  to  know  what  in  the you  mean  by 

refusing  so  often  to  marry  me." 

In  her  sweet,  gentle  way  she  replied : 
"  I  mean  to  marry  you  the  next  time  you  ask  me." 
That  settled  it.     He  asked  her  again,  was  accepted  and 
they  soon  were  married.    It  was,  however,  not  a  happy  mar- 
riage, because  as  long  as  the  old  man  lived  he  kept  up  his 
wild  and  reckless  ways  and  led  her  quite  an  unhappy  life. 

Father  was  still  of  a  roving  dispostion.  No  sooner  had 
he  become  thoroughly  prosperous  in  Gonzales  County  than 
he  decided  that  he  would  move  some  fifty  miles  further 
south  and  settle  in  the  edge  of  Bastrop  County.  He  had  ac- 
quired no  land  in  Gonzales  County,  but  had  made  a  splendid 


32         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

new  start  in  life  and  was  well  equipped  for  taking  up  his 
profession  and  for  making  a  sane  and  sensible  land  invest- 
ment when  we  reached  Bastrop  County. 

One  point  in  the  move  was  that  in  going  to  Bastrop 
County  we  approached  forty  or  fifty  miles  nearer  to  the 
market.  The  Southern  Pacific  Railway  still  had  as  its  ter- 
minal point  the  town  of  Columbus,  and  this  was  our  railroad 
point  almost  all  the  time  we  lived  in  Bastrop  and  Gonzales 
Cpunties. 

During  our  stay  in  Gonzales  County,  father  abandoned 
the  old-fashioned  wagon  we  had,  which  was  a  wooden  axle 
with  linch  pins  and  the  tar  bucket  hanging  on  the  coupling 
pole,  and  bought  what  he  called  a  "  thimble-skein  "  wagon 
over  at  Belmont,  some  twelve  miles  away.  I  went  with  him 
to  buy  the  wagon,  and  my  father  paid  the  $125  for  it  in 
gold.  It  was  not  of  the  beautifully  painted  type  that  we  see 
nowadays,  having  been  manufactured  in  a  local  shop,  but  it 
was  an  iron  axle  wagon  that  we  greased  with  axle  grease. 
The  purchase  of  this  wagon  marked  a  distinct  advance  in 
our  fortunes.  It  was  very  useful  in  marketing  such  products 
as  we  grew,  and  it  also  elevated  us  very  considerably  in  the 
scale  of  respectability.  The  man  that  could  afford  a  "  thim- 
ble-skein "  wagon  that  was  greased  with  axle  grease  was 
in  many  respects  a  bloated  aristocrat,  and  while  father  was 
never  puffed  up  on  account  of  any  prosperity  that  came  to 
him,  I  did  notice  that  he  sat  a  little  straighter  in  his  saddle 
after  that. 

It  was  Christmas  week  of  1868  when  we  moved  from 
Gonzales  down  into  Bastrop  County.  We  almost  paralleled 
the  lines  of  the*  two  counties  on  our  way  south,  so  that  when 
we  reached  our  final  destination  in  the  edge  of  Bastrop 
County,  we  were  still  only  a  mile  or  two  from  its  intersec- 
tion with  Gonzales  County.  While  we  had  shifted  our  loca- 
tion some  forty  miles,  we  had  not  very  considerably  changed 
if  we  went  by  the  geography. 


DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY      33 

I  entered  school  at  Harris  Chapel  when  we  lived  in  Gon- 
zales County.  This  school  was  taught  by  Miss  Lou  Scog- 
gins,  the  very  amiable  and  cultured  daughter  of  Henry  Scog- 
gins.  She  was  a  most  lovely  woman  and  I  loved  her  dearly. 
Hers  was  the  first  "  really  and  truly  "  school  that  I  ever  at- 
tended. Meantime  I  had  been  to  the  writing  school  taught 
by  Mr.  Pyle,  but  Miss  Scoggins  kept  a  sure  enough  school. 
The  first  day  I  was  in  that  school,  I  was  placed  in  a  spelling 
class  of  girls.  There  were  nine  of  them.  I  started  in  at 
the  foot.  During  the  day,  when  Miss  Lou  was  giving  out 
a  spelling  lesson,  she  began  at  the  head  of  the  class  and  gave 
out  the  word  "  major."  They  all  missed  the  word.  I  spelled 
it  correctly,  went  head  and  stood  head  of  the  class  all  of 
the  time  until  I  was  promoted  to  another  class. 

I  was  not  a  beautiful  boy  to  look  upon.  I  was  barefooted, 
my  hair  was  long,  I  was  still  wearing  homespun  clothes,  and 
when  I  first  entered  that  school,  many  of  the  pupils  in  better 
circumstances  looked  at  me  askance.  When,  however,  I 
showed  them  that  I  could  spell  and  could  walk  along  with 
them  in  the  quest  of  knowledge,  they  ever  after  treated  me 
with  the  most  cordial  respect. 

Another  experience  in  the  old  Gonzales  County  home  will 
never  be  forgotten.  We  lived  a  little  way  from  the  beautiful 
San  Marcos  River.  This  is  one  of  the  prettiest  streams  in 
the  world.  It  bursts  out  of  the  mountain  side  at  San  Mar- 
cos, a  river  at  its  birth,  and  it  is  beautiful,  clear  and  spark- 
ling from  its  source  to  its  mouth.  It  was  in  this  crystal 
stream  that  I  learned  to  swim,  and  in  its  waters  I  came  very 
near  being  drowned.  Had  it  not  been  for  Billy  Hale,  my 
dear,  good  boyhood  friend,  I  would  have  sunk  in  the  waters 
to  rise  no  more.  As  I  was  sinking  for  the  third  time,  he 
reached  me  and  carried  me  to  shore.  I  have  seen  him  many 
times  since  we  were  both  grown,  and  I  love  and  cherish  him 
as  I  do  one  next  of  kin. 

Another  incident  in  our  Gonzales  County  life  lingers  with 


34         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

me  as  I  write.  One  day  I  was  playing  with  Linn  Echols,  a 
grandson  of  old  Uncle  Johnnie  Echols,  when  another  one  of 
the  children  ran  out  and  said  to  Linn : 

"  Your  grandfather  is  dead." 

Linn  jumped  up,  and  with  a  radiant  expression  on  his 
face,  said: 

"  Well,  Fm  going  to  have  his  knife !  " 

That  was  in  a  remote  place,  "  far  from  the  madding 
crowd's  ignoble  strife,"  but  wrapped  in  the  little  playmate 
with  whom  I  played  that  day  was  as  large  an  endowment 
of  human  nature  as  you  will  find  in  the  gamblers  of  Wall 
Street.  He  must,  in  his  way,  have  loved  his  grandfather, 
but  when  he  learned  the  old  man  was  gone,  the  first  thing  of 
which  he  thought  was  how  he  would  profit  through  the  dear 
grandfather's  death. 

It  was  in  Gonzales  County  in  the  winter  of  1866  that  I 
first  learned  the  meaning  of  those  numerals.  Some  one  had 
written  them  quite  large  on  our  barn  door.  They  attracted 
my  attention.  While  I  had  learned  how  to  read  and  spell, 
I  had  not  learned  anything  of  figures.  I  finally  went  to  my 
mother  one  day  and  asked  her  what  these  figures  meant. 
She  explained  what  the  numerals  signified.  Her  tender, 
kind  and  loving  recital  of  our  Saviour's  birth  and  of  all 
those  gracious  stories  about  His  childhood  and  His  life, 
which  she  delighted  to  relate,  made  an  impression  upon  me 
that  lingers  with  me  still  and  will  until  my  dying  day. 

About  this  time,  I  had  my  first  pair  of  red  top  boots.  I 
never  had  before  enjoyed  the  luxury  of  wearing  boots.  My 
father  bought  my  brother  and  me  each  a  pair  and  we  were 
two  of  the  happiest  boys  in  Gonzales  County.  I  did  not  keep 
mine  long.  Soon  after  they  were  given  us,  my  brother  and 
I,  while  playing  down  by  the  well,  became  involved  in  an 
argument.  I  was  impetuous  and  somewhat  intolerant,  par- 
ticularly regarding  my  brother,  whereas  on  the  other  hand 
he  was  very  gentle,  patient  and  kind  with  me.    He  was  four 


Dr.  T.  E.  Cranfill,  Only  Brother  of  J.  B.  Cranfill. 


DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY      35 

years  older  and  had  been  taught  that  he  must  be  very  care- 
ful not  to  run  over  his  little  brother.  I  was  the  baby  of  the 
family  and  spoiled.  My  mother  petted  me  and  my  father 
indulged  me  more  than  he  would  have  been  willing  to  con- 
fess, so  on  this,  as  on  other  occasions,  I  tried  to  run  it  over 
my  brother  and  soon  became  quite  heated  in  the  argument. 
Anger  followed  heat.  We  had  pulled  off  our  boots  to  wade, 
and  so,  when  the  real  quarrel  began,  the  handiest  weapon 
was  one  of  my  boots.  I  threw  it  at  my  brother.  He  dex- 
terously dodged  it  and  it  went  into  the  well.  That  was  the 
last  of  my  red  top  boots. 

If  I  could  then  have  taken  the  lesson  seriously  to  heart, 
it  would  have  saved  me  many  pains  and  penalties  in  after 
years.  When  my  boot  fell  into  the  well,  all  my  anger  was 
gone  and  I  burst  into  tears.  My  brother,  with  whom  I  had 
been  in  such  heated  argument  before,  ran  to  me  and  took  me 
in  his  arms  to  console  me  for  the  loss  of  this  belonging  that 
I  so  dearly  loved,  but  the  boot  was  gone,  though  the  dear 
brother  whom  I  had  so  earnestly  tried  to  punish  remained 
and  was  a  consolation  and  help  to  me  through  many  event- 
ful years,  as  he  is  today. 

Bastrop  and  Gonzales  were  cattle  counties.  The  cattle 
industry  took  its  rise  in  those  and  adjoining  counties.  De- 
Witt  and  Bexar  were  also  noted  for  their  wealth  of  cattle, 
but  none  of  them  excelled  Gonzales  County  in  the  output  of 
cattle  in  the  decade  that  followed. 

It  was  not  counted  theft  for  a  man  to  brand  any  unmarked 
yearling  that  he  found  out  on  the  range.  So  well  was  this 
established  that  unprincipled  men  presumed  upon  the  cus- 
tom and  stole  cattle  that  had  been  branded.  Great  abuses 
arose,  and  many  is  the  time  that  my  dear  father  was  vexed 
beyond  endurance  from  the  fact  that  these  cow  thieves 
stole  his  cattle.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  word 
"  maverick,"  now  a  good  dictionary  term,  grew  out  of  the 
post-bellum  cattle  industry.    The  man  from  whose  name  this 


36         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

term  arose  was  Sam  Maverick,  of  San  Antonio.  He  was  a 
great  cattle  man  and  afterwards  became  a  distinguished 
business  man.  He  had,  during  the  war,  allowed  his  cattle 
to  run  wild,  so  that  when  the  war  closed  he  went  on  the 
range  to  gather  them  up  again.  Many  of  them  were  un- 
branded.  They  had  received  no  attention  during  the  four 
or  five  years  of  civil  strife,  and  Mr.  Maverick  thought  it  en- 
tirely legitimate  for  him  to  appropriate  any  unbranded  cattle 
that  he  found.  He  assumed  that  all  of  these  were  his.  Other 
men  took  up  the  sarrie  plan,  and  so  it  was  a  scramble  be- 
tween these  new  cattle  men  as  to  who  could  appropriate 
most  of  the  unbranded  calves  and  yearlings.  Indeed,  some 
of  the  unbranded  cattle  in  the  first  stages  of  the  Southwest 
Texas  cattle  industry  were  four  and  five  years  old.  Mr. 
Maverick  was  more  of  an  adept  in  coralling  the  unbranded 
cattle  and  they  were  called  mavericks.  Father  was  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  whole  plan,  and  denounced  it  as  cow- 
stealing.  It  rendered  him  quite  unpopular  among  the  cattle 
men.  I  wonder  how  he  ever  got  through  alive.  He  was  out 
riding  at  night  very  much  of  his  time,  covering  wide  stretches 
of  country,  and  he,  at  all  times,  expressed  himself  openly 
concerning  this  kind  of  cattle  operations.  He  taught  my 
brother  and  me  that  we  should  never,  at  any  time,  dare  to 
drive  in  an  unbranded  calf  or  yearling  unless  we  knew  posi- 
tively it  was  ours.  He  was  scrupulously  honest,  and  I  re- 
joice in  the  heritage  he  gave  me  of  an  unsullied  name. 

But  the  cattle  business  waxed  great.  The  seasons  were 
excellent,  the  range  was  magnificent  and  the  cattle  men  in- 
dustrious. From  the  first  of  our  experiences  in  Bastrop 
County,  it  became  my  most  cherished  ambition  to  be  a  cow- 
boy. I  knew  many  of  the  young  boys  who  were  going  up 
the  beef  trail  and  it  was  hard  for  me  to  wait  until  I  would 
be  large  enough  to  take  my  place  with  them  and  follow  the 
slow  moving  herd  to  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  markets 
up  the  old  Chisholm  beef  trail.     How  I  loved  to  think  of 


DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY      37 

such  splendid  herd  bosses  as  Gladney  McVeay,  Ell  Barnard 
and  men  of  their  type;  and  "Nick"  Miller,  who  was  the 
baron  of  that  part  of  Gonzales  County,  was  my  ideal  of  a 
great  and  successful  man.  When  he  returned  from  the 
army,  he  was  as  poor  as  the  rest  of  his  neighbors,  but  was 
a  man  of  a  far  vision.  After  the  inauguration  of  the  Mav- 
erick round-up,  he  was  quickly  in  the  thick  of  the  campaign. 
He  was  not  only  an  expert  on  his  own  account,  but  he  em- 
ployed such  splendid  cattle  men  as  Gladney  McVeay,  Ell 
Barnard,  John  Greenhaw  and  others  of  like  type  who  gravi- 
tated to  Mr.  Miller  as  the  steel  filing  gravitates  to  the  mag- 
net. Within  a  few  years  Nick  Miller  was  the  richest  man  in 
Gonzales  County. 

The  cowboys  began  to  round  up  the  cattle  sometimes  as 
early  as  the  middle  of  February.  The  cattle  were  thin  from 
the  deprivations  of  the  winter,  but  when  grass  "  rose  "  they 
soon  picked  up  in  flesh,  and  as  they  were  gathered  they  were 
put  in  herds  and  kept  on  the  range  so  that  they  might  in- 
crease in  weight  and  improve  in  condition  ready  for  the  trail. 
When  a  herd  would  be  gathered,  it  was  necessary  to  brand 
all  of  the  herd  with  what  was  called  the  "  road  brand  "  — 
a  brand  that  would  be  common  to  all  the  cattle  that  were  to 
be  driven.  Every  cow  man  had  his  own  peculiar  road  brand, 
and  this  road  brand  was  put  on  the  cattle's  left  jaw.  The 
cattle  would  be  driven  into  pens  and  these  pens  would  nar- 
row into  chutes.  When  a  chute  would  be  filled  with  cattle, 
the  rear  gate  would  be  closed  and  the  cowboys  would  walk 
along  on  the  fence  on  each  side  and  put  on  the  road  brand. 
Other  cowboys  would  be  busy  heating  the  branding  irons. 
Hundreds  of  cattle  could  be  thus  road-branded  in  a  day. 

A  herd  of  cattle  was  not  a  fixed  quantity.  It  would  range 
all  the  way  from  1500  to  15,000  head.  The  ideal  size,  how- 
ever, was  1500,  and  when  this  number  would  be  gathered, 
duly  road-branded  and  the  outfit  organized,  the  herd  would 
start  up  the  trail  on  its  long  journey  for  the  Western  cattle 


38         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

market.  The  old  Chisholm  beef  trail  ran  by  way  of  Austin, 
Round  Rock,  Georgetown,  Belton,  Comanche  Springs,  Craw- 
ford, Valley  Mills,  and  on  up  through  Fort  Worth  to  the 
Indian  Territory  and  from  there  into  Kansas.  The  great 
cattle  market  of  that  period  was  Abilene,  Kansas,  and  later 
on  it  was  rivaled  by  Omaha,  Nebraska. 

The  cattle  industry  bore  an  important  relation  to  all  other 
lines  of  endeavor.  Not  much  was  being  done  as  early  as 
1868  on  the  farm.  Three  years  had  elapsed  since  the  close 
of  the  Civil  War,  but  the  farmers  of  Southwest  Texas  had 
not  fully  pulled  themselves  together  for  their  farming  opera- 
tions. The  average  settler  combined  his  stock  raising  with 
his  farming,  and  that  is  what  my  father  did. 

Part  of  his  farm  was  prairie  and  part  sandy  land.  We 
settled  near  Hallmark's  Prairie,  at  a  point  about  equidistant 
from  Gonzales,  Bastrop,  Lockhart  and  LaGrange.  The 
four  counties  of  which  these  were  the  county  sites  cornered 
near  my  father's  farm.  We  lived  on  the  main  thoroughfares 
from  Lockhart  to  LaGrange  and  from  Bastrop  to  Gonzales. 
Later  on,  the  postoffice  known  as  Jeddo  was  established  near 
my  father's  house,  but  when  we  moved  to  this  new  home, 
the  nearest  postoffice  was  Hopkinsville,  Gonzales  County, 
five  miles  away.  The  next  nearest  postoffice  was  Cistern, 
Fayette  County,  otherwise  called  Cockrell's  Hill. 

Our  market  was  Columbus,  fifty  miles  away.  There  were 
stores  nearer  to  us.  A  few  years  after  we  moved  there,  a 
store  was  established  at  Jeddo.  Meantime  we  marketed 
at  Hopkinsville  or  Cockrell's  Hill,  and  for  larger  purchases 
we  went  either  to  Gonzales  or  Bastrop.  The  rate  of 
freight  for  hauling  from  Columbus  to  our  point  was  $1.00 
a  hundred  and  the  chief  freight  hauler  was  Daniel  John- 
son. He  had  two  boys,  George  and  Daniel,  and  these 
were  our  nearest  neighbors  and  closest  friends.  Daniel 
Johnson  kept  his  wagon  busy  all  the  time  hauling  produce, 
such  as  corn  and  cotton,  down  to  the  market  and  bringing 


DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY      39 

back  such  freight  as  was  needed  for  the  neighbors  and  the 
store-keepers.  That  was  not  a  wheat  country  and  is  not  to- 
day. Flour  was  very  scarce  and  the  price  was  $12  a  barrel. 
I  do  not  think  that  we  ever  saw  a  biscuit  in  that  part  of  the 
country  until  Uncle  Daniel  one  time  brought  some  flour 
back  from  Columbus.  The  man  who  could  buy  a  barrel  of 
flour  was  a  very  distinguished  citizen.  The  only  man  then 
who  dared  to  invest  such  a  startlingly  large  amount  in  flour 
was  Daniel  Johnson  and  he  made  the  money  by  freighting, 
so  it  did  not  come  hard  for  him.  We  grew  our  own  corn, 
our  melons,  our  vegetables  and  had  some  fruit,  but  flour 
bread  was  a  treasure  to  be  remembered  forever  and  ever.  I 
never  shall  forget  how  eager  I  used  to  be  to  go  to  stay  all 
night  with  the  Johnson  boys  in  the  hope  that  their  mother 
would  cook  biscuit  bread  for  breakfast,  which  she  often  did, 
especially  on  Sunday  mornings. 

The  story  goes  that  during  this  period  a  boy  once  found 
a  biscuit.  Never  having  seen  one,  he  thought  it  was  a  terra- 
pin and  built  a  fire  on  its  back  to  make  it  crawl.  Great  was 
his  surprise  when  this  terrapin  literally  allowed  itself  to  be 
baked  and  baked  again,  and  never  would  crawl.  Later  on 
he  found  out  what  the  biscuit  was. 

The  schools  were  few  and  poor.  The  school  that  we  first 
attended  was  one  taught  by  a  one-armed  minister  by  the 
name  of  Johnson,  now  long  since  in  Heaven.  He  was  a  good 
man,  but  all  were  in  dread  of  his  tremendously  muscular 
left  arm.  Our  schooling  was  fragmentary.  We  would  get 
as  much  as  two  months  of  schooling,  perhaps,  in  the  sum- 
mer time,  and  then  after  crops  were  gathered,  which  usually 
was  about  November  15,  we  would  get  some  schooling  be- 
tween that  and  corn  planting  time.  Father's  plan  was  to 
begin  corn  planting  on  February  14,  unless  it  fell  on  Sun- 
day, his  theory  being  that  the  early  corn,  if  it  hit,  made  a 
splendid  crop,  whereas  the  late  corn  usually  suffered  from 
drought  and  turned  out  poorly.     It  thus  fell  out  that  the 


40         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

best  we  could  possibly  do  in  the  matter  of  schooling  would 
be  to  get  from  three  to  four  months  in  the  year.  Sometimes 
extra  things  would  intervene  to  keep  us  at  home,  and  it  was 
thus  that  our  schooling  came  in  a  way  to  do  us  the  least  pos- 
sible good. 

I  do  not  lay  any  of  this  at  the  door  of  my  dear  father. 
Other  farmers  and  stock  raisers  in  the  neighborhood  kept 
their  boys  in  the  field  and  out  with  the  cattle  all  the  time. 
The  schools  were  very  small  and  it  was  only  the  fewest  num- 
ber of  boys  who  were  allowed  to  attend.  Things  were  down 
to  bedrock.  Times  were  strenuous  and  hard,  and  the  boy 
who  could  earn  anything  whatever  was  needed  at  the  plow 
or  in  rounding  up  the  cattle.  My  father  believed  profoundly 
in  education.  He  did  the  very  best  for  us  that  could  be  done 
with  the  means  at  his  command,  and  I  cherish  the  memory 
of  his  loving  kindness  with  a  grateful  heart.  We  had  never 
heard  of  colleges  and  knew  nothing  of  the  great  wide  world 
of  learning.  It  was  a  Godsend  to  us  to  have  the  little  school- 
ing that  came  our  way,  and  in  that  schooling  we  laid  the 
foundation  for  those  literary  and  mental  achievements  which 
became  ours  in  after  years. 

We  had  to  economize  at  every  point.  Brother  and  I  helped 
in  buying  our  books.  After  we  became  larger  and  were  able 
to  handle  ourselves  well,  we  often  would  look  out  for  some 
dead  cow  as  we  went  on  our  ponies  to  school,  and  finding 
one,  we  would  stop,  take  oi¥  the  hide,  throw  it  across  a 
neighbor's  fence  and  bring  it  home  with  us  in  the  afternoon. 

The  matter  of  saving  cow  hides  was  a  corollary  industry 
of  the  other  branches  of  the  cattle  business.  The  hide  was 
worth  nearly  as  much  as  the  cow.  Cattle  were  very  cheap. 
Beef  was  worth  nothing,  and  the  cattle,  even  when  driven 
to  the  Western  market,  brought  such  small  prices  that  it 
was  hardly  worth  while  to  drive  them.  During  the  winter 
months,  many  of  the  cows  would  become  thin  and  would  get 
down  "  on  the  lift,"  so  that  it  was  simply  a  question  of  a 


DOWN  IN  GONZALES  COUNTY      41 

short  time  when  they  would  be  found  dead.  After  they  died, 
it  was  by  general  consent  everybody's  prerogative  to  skin  the 
cows  and  thus  save  the  hides.  My  brother  and  I  would  ply 
this  branch  of  the  industry  on  our  own  account  as  best  we 
could.  This  was  done  with  father's  approval.  The  plan 
was  marred  by  manifold  abuses.  I  recall  one  thief  who  did 
much  to  bring  this  sensible  plan  into  disrepute.  He  would 
not  wait  for  the  poor  "  on-the-lift  "  cattle  to  die.  He  would 
drive  a  nail  into  the  cow's  brain  just  behind  the  horns  and 
then  would  have  a  dead  cow  to  skin.  Another  industry 
arose  somewhat  later  which  was  unique.  I  never  knew  of 
its  repetition  elsewhere.  Cattle  were  very  cheap  and  hides 
were  valuable.  Hogs  were  also  valuable.  Pork  sold  for 
many  times  the^  price  of  beef.  Men  established  "  slaughter 
houses."  They  would  buy  cattle,  drive  them  to  these  slaugh- 
ter houses,  kill  them,  take  off  their  hides,  prepare  the  hides 
for  market  and  feed  the  flesh  to  the  hogs.  This  industry 
did  not  long  survive,  because  the  price  of  cattle  increased 
and  the  price  of  hogs  declined.  It  furnished  opportunity 
for  many  a  cow  thief  to  take  his  neighbor's  cows,  slaughter 
them  and  hide  the  evidence  of  his  crime. 


V 

MY  FIRST  BOOK— BASTROP   COUNTY   SCHOOL 

DAYS 

FATHER  was  very  kind  to  brother  and  me.  When 
we  would  be  particularly  industrious  in  our  own 
crops,  gather  them  quickly  and  get  them  ready  for 
market,  he  would  allow  us  to  help  our  neighbors  and  thus 
make  money  for  ourselves.  I  picked  125  pounds  of  cotton, 
for  which  a  neighbor  paid  me  $1.25.  With  this  money 
I  bought  a  book  entitled,  "  How  to  Read  Character."  I 
had  become  interested  in  this  subject  through  reading  the 
article  on  phrenology  in  "  Chambers'  Encyclopedia,"  which 
my  father  had  bought  at  one  of  the  numerous  sales  he  at- 
tended. In  the  earlier  days  of  Texas,  the  settlers  were  no- 
madic. Wagons  were  poor  and  scarce.  The  average  settler 
was  not  able  to  afford  more  than  one  or  two  wagons  and 
teams.  When  moving  time  came,  the  family  who  were  gomg 
to  move  gave  out  that  they  were  leaving  soon  and  would  sell 
at  public  outcry  such  of  their  belongings  as  they  could  not 
take  with  them.  It  was  my  father's  custom  to  attend  these 
sales  and  buy  the  books.  In  this  way  he  acquired  a  regular 
"  Joseph's  coat "  of  a  library,  but  it  contained  very  many 
valuable  works.  Among  them  was  "  Chambers'  Encyclo- 
pedia," and  in  this  volume  was  the  article  on  phrenology  to 
which  I  have  referred. 

Later  Daniel  C.  Bellows,  a  phrenologist,  came  to  our 
neighborhood  lecturing.  He  was  an  expert  reader  of  char- 
acter, was  well  versed  in  literary  lore  and  was  a  born  actor. 
He  read  beautifully.    There  was  an  explanation  for  his  being 

42 


BASTROP  COUNTY  SCHOOL  DAYS    43 

so  far  from  the  centers  of  influence  and  culture.  He  was  a 
drunkard.  Every  time  he  got  a  little  money  ahead,  he  went 
on  a  spree  until  his  money  was  gone.  He  would  then  go  out 
lecturing  again  to  earn  more  money  with  which  to  get  more 
whiskey.  He  visited  us  in  a  lucid  moment  and  lectured  on 
phrenology  at  the  little  Hardshell  Baptist  church  house. 

One  of  the  methods  he  adopted  in  his  character  reading 
was  to  call  each  evening  for  volunteers  to  come  forward  for 
free  phrenological  examinations.  He  would  blindfold  himself 
so  that  everyone  would  know  there  could  possibly  be  no  col- 
lusion between  him  and  the  examinee.  One  evening  the  vil- 
lage blacksmith,  Uncle  Asa  Bellamy,  went  forward.  He 
was  the  senior  deacon  of  the  Hardshell  Baptist  church,  of 
which  my  father  and  mother  were  members.  A  good  man, 
but  as  thoroughly  a  Hardshell  and  non-progressive  as  could 
be  found  in  Texas.  When  Uncle  Asa  came  to  the  front  Dr. 
Bellows  had  no  more  idea  who  the  man  before  him  was  than 
he  would  have  had  if  he  had  met  him  in  Central  Africa. 
The  first  thing  he  said  after  putting  his  hands  on  Uncle  Asa's 
head  was  this : 

"  This  man  would  rather  go  to  hell  a  Hardshell  Baptist 
than  to  Heaven  anything  else  in  the  world." 

That  settled  it.  Ever  after  that,  during  Dr.  Bellows' 
sojourn  there  he  was  a  masterful  man.  He  did  much  busi- 
ness. He  examined  all  of  our  heads,  agreed  to  write  charts 
for  us  and  did  so  much  work  for  us  that  my  father  sold  him 
a  good  horse  and  saddle.  He  did  not  pay  in  full  for  the 
horse  and  saddle.  He  was  going  to  send  the  money  back 
from  his  next  engagement,  which,  of  course,  he  never  did. 

Thus  my  interest  in  the  subject  of  phrenology  was  inten- 
sified. After  having  read  the  article  in  "  Chambers'  Ency- 
clopedia," I  was  naturally  greatly  interested  in  the  lectures 
of  Dr.  Bellows.  I  was  then  about  twelve  years  old.  When 
I  received  my  book,  I  took  it  out  to  the  field  with  me,  reading 
at  the  noon  hour  and  reading  again  and  again  as  my  mule 


44         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

would  turn  at  the  end  of  the  row.  It  was  not  long  before  I 
knew  it  by  heart,  and  I  soon  began  the  examination  of  the 
crania  of  different  animals.  I  gathered  a  great  collection  of 
the  skulls  of  cats,  dogs,  rabbits  and  other  animals,  both  of 
the  smaller  and  the  larger  type,  and  now  and  then  would  get 
one  of  my  neighbor  boys  off  to  one  side  and  feel  his  bumps. 

Phrenology  has  always  been  to  me  a  very  engaging  study. 
I  believe  there  is  much  in  it,  but  there  have  been  so  many 
charlatans  and  frauds  who  have  practiced  it  that  the  science 
has  been  brought  greatly  into  disrepute.  That  there  is  a 
science  in  it,  I  have  never  had  a  doubt.  I  know,  of  course, 
that  such  eminent  physiologists  as  Dalton  and  others  have 
inveighed  greatly  against  it,  and  I  think  that  perhaps  no 
standard  work  on  physiology  of  today  admits  that  phrenol- 
ogy is  what  it  claims.  At  the  same  time,  after  I  studied  and 
practiced  medicine  and  after  I  made  still  further  investiga- 
tions of  the  subject,  I  believed  in  it. 

I  will  return  to  the  question  of  our  school  books  and  school 
days.  Before  doing  this,  however,  I  must  refer  to  what  I 
regarded  as  one  of  my  father's  great  weaknesses.  He  sold 
the  traveling  phrenologist  a  horse  and  saddle  largely  on 
credit  and  never  heard  of  him  again.  He  was  in  this  way 
victimized  by  more  frauds  than  any  intelligent  man  I  ever 
knew.  I  have  had  my  own  day  along  the  same  line  and  am 
having  it  yet.  Often  I  am  reminded  of  my  dear  father,  be- 
cause any  one  who  will  come  and  tell  me  a  pitiful  story  and 
put  some  new  twist  to  it  can  appeal  to  my  sympathies  and 
get  me  to  help  him.  Crying  always  gets  me.  I  have  helped 
more  unworthy  tramps,  drunkards  and  professed  unfortun- 
ates than  any  man  of  my  years  that  I  now  know  of,  but  I 
am  really  not  to  be  classed  with  my  dear  father  along  this 
line.  He  would  help  any  poor  straggler,  no  matter  what 
kind  of  a  story  he  told. 

Once  a  very  sick  man  came  to  my  father's  house  and  ap- 
pealed for  medical  attention.    We  took  him  into  the  house, 


BASTROP  COUNTY  SCHOOL  DAYS    45 

gave  him  a  bed  on  which  to  sleep,  gave  him  medicine,  gave 
him  food,  waited  on  him  Hke  he  was  a  brother  and  kept  him 
with  us  for  six  or  eight  weeks  until  he  was  entirely  recov- 
ered. On  one  fair  night,  when  my  father  was  out  on  his 
rounds  practicing  medicine,  the  scamp  stole  one  of  his  best 
horses  and  left  for  parts  unknown.  We  never  saw  the  man 
nor  heard  of  the  horse  afterwards.  At  another  time  my 
father  took  in  another  doctor  as  a  partner.  The  doctor  was 
down  at  the  heel  and  altogether  to  the  bad.  He  was  a  very 
pitiful  spectacle.  He  did  not  have  a  change  of  clothing  and 
was  up  against  it  hard.  However,  he  had  a  good  address 
and  showed  evidence  of  culture  and  refinement.  My  father 
took  him  in,  and  you  may  be  sure  he  took  my  father  in. 
Father  sent  him  out  to  see  patients,  finally  gave  him  a  half 
interest  in  his  practice  and  was  rewarded  by  the  greatest 
exhibition  of  treachery  I  have  ever  known,  culminating  in 
an  attempt  on  the  part  of  this  man  to  murder  my  father. 

These  are  samples  of  the  manner  in  which  my  father 
helped  the  helpless,  and  while  he  was  often  victimized,  I  do 
not  know  that  I  would  have  it  different  could  I  call  him  back 
and  have  him  live  his  life  again.  I  feel  the  same  about  my 
own  case.  I  have  suffered  much  at  the  hands  of  irresponsi- 
ble vagrants,  tramps  and  frauds,  but  now  and  again,  as  I 
have  journeyed  on  I  have  helped  some  worthv  man  to  get 
on  his  feet  and  I  have  found  afterwards  a  rich  reward  in 
the  splendid  gratitude  exhibited  and  in  the  good  record  sub- 
sequently made. 

The  schools  my  brother  and  I  attended  were  all  common- 
place but  one.  I  make  no  railing  accusation  against  them. 
The  teachers  received  poor  pay  and  did  poor  service.  When 
I  was  about  twelve  years  old,  however,  we  came  in  contact 
with  one  genuine  God-made  teacher.  My  father  sent  us  to 
Hopkinsville  to  school,  five  miles  from  home.  We  had  to  ride 
our  ponies  there  and  we  had  our  work  to  do  mornings  and 
evenings,  so  we  had  very  little  time  for  anything  in  the  way 


46         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

of  study  at  home.  We  had  to  do  all  our  studying  at  school. 
The  teacher  to  whom  I  refer  was  George  W.  Betts.  He  was 
the  first  school  teacher  and  the  only  one  I  ever  had  who 
awoke  in  me  a  real,  genuine,  all-absorbing  thirst  for  knowl- 
edge. I  had  loved  books  all  my  life,  but  I  had  never  awak- 
ened to  the  real  importance  of  learning  until  I  met  Mr.  Betts. 
Long  years  the  dear  man  has  been  in  his  grave.  I  wish  that 
he  were  living  now  to  read  this  tribute  that  I  pay  him.  He 
was  a  born  teacher.  He  loved  knowledge  and  had  the  great- 
est gift  for  its  impartation  of  any  school  teacher  I  ever  knew. 
He  taught  the  school  called  the  Hopkins ville  Academy, 
which  my  brother  and  I  attended  two  to  three  months  each 
year  for  about  three  years.    We  progressed  very  rapidly. 

The  Hopkinsville  school  days  were  the  happiest  of  my 
childhood.  All  my  life  I  had  loved  books  and  papers  and 
longed  for  knowledge.  Now  I  had  found  a  teacher  whose 
heart  and  mind  conspired  to  make  him  a  genuine  instructor. 
His  was  a  splendid  personality,  he  loved  his  students,  he  was 
himself  a  finished  scholar,  and  there  was  activity  and  prog- 
ress in  everything  he  did  and  said. 

I  hated  farm  work.  There  never  was  a  day  when  I  was 
a  boy  working  on  the  farm  that  I  did  not  resolve  in  my  secret 
soul  to  quit  farm  life  just  as  soon  as  I  was  big  enough  to 
do  so.  I  never  seriously  purposed  to  run  away.  Mine  was  a 
wise  father  and  he  discounted  in  advance  any  purpose  we 
had  to  run  away.  Now  and  then  he  would  call  us  to  him 
and  speak  to  us  as  follows : 

"  Boys,  there  are  a  large  number  of  young  fellows  who, 
it  seems,  would  love  to  run  away.  Some  of  them  are  run- 
ning away.  I  do  not  want  you  to  belong  to  that  class. 
Whenever  either  of  you  feels  that  you  can  do  better  some- 
where else  than  you  can  in  your  home,  come  and  tell  me  so 
and  I  will  arrange  for  you  to  go  away  in  peace.  I  will  equip 
each  of  you  with  a  good  horse,  saddle  and  bridle,  give  you 


BASTROP  COUNTY  SCHOOL  DAYS    47 

some  money  to  help  you  along  and  always  welcome  you 
back  home." 

This  took  all  of  the  starch  out  of  the  runaway  game,  and 
my  brother  and  I  never  seriously  purposed  such  an  escapade. 
However,  I  detested  farming  operations  to  the  very  bottom 
of  my  soul.  I  hated  every  feature  of  it.  I  did  not  like  to 
get  up  early.  I  did  not  like  to  plow  or  hoe  or  pick  cotton, 
and  I  did  not  like  the  plan  of  retiring  practically  at  dark,  for 
I  loved  to  read  at  night.  Mr.  Betts  was  my  ideal  of  a  way 
out.  He  so  thoroughly  met  my  heart's  desire  in  the  matter 
of  books  and  schooling  that  I  felt  that  I  could  equip  myself 
for  something  besides  farm  work. 

Among  our  text  books  were  Ray's  Arithmetic,  Composi- 
tion and  Rhetoric  by  Quackenbos,  Ray's  Algebra,  Clark's 
Grammar  and  the  McGuffey's  series  of  readers.  Mr.  Betts 
was  strong  on  spelling,  punctuation  and  composition.  He 
was  able  to  do  what  many  teachers  are  incapable  of  perform- 
ing— he  could  speak  and  write  the  English  language  per- 
fectly. Clark's  Grammar  was  a  grammar  in  which  we 
learned  to  diagram.  That  was  very  difficult  for  me,  but 
arithmetic,  and  indeed  all  the  branches  of  mathematics,  were 
easy,  as  well  as  composition  and  rhetoric.  So  strong  was  my 
brother  in  English  composition  that  during  one  of  our 
periods  of  absence  from  school  covering  a  number  of 
months,  he  kept  up  his  studies  in  composition  and  took  first 
honors  at  the  ensuing  winter  examination.  We  both  loved 
study  and  we  craved  to  go  to  school  with  an  unutterable 
longing.  Looking  back  upon  it  now,  it  seems  pathetic  that 
we  had  so  little  opportunity  to  receive  a  really  genuine  edu- 
cation. 

We  had  all  of  the  features  of  the  traditional  country 
school.  At  the  end  of  each  school  term,  we  had  our  exhibi- 
tion, where  we  would  read  compositions,  make  speeches,  act 
charades  and  finally  close  with  some  kind  of  joyful  enter- 
tainment.    Meantime,  we  had  our  long  hours  for  playtime. 


48         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

I  have  always  thought  well  of  this  plan.  Some  of  the  hap- 
piest moments  of  my  life  were  spent  on  the  old  Hopkinsville 
playground.  We  knew  nothing  of  football  or  baseball,  but 
we  became  experts  in  town-ball  and  bull-pen.  One  day  at 
the  noon  recess  we  had  both  a  town-ball  game  and  a  bull- 
pen game  going  on  in  different  parts  of  our  playground  at 
the  same  time.  Boyd  Mullen  was  left-handed  and  he  was 
one  of  the  men  who  was  throwing  at  the  boys  in  the  bull- 
pen. All  at  once,  one  of  the  other  boys,  who  was  engaged 
in  the  game,  came  running  up  as  hard  as  he  could  and  very 
much  excited,  and  said : 

"  Oh,  boys,  boys !  Run  here  quick !  Boyd  Mullen  has 
knocked  Doc  Stewart  sensible !  " 

It  was  a  fact  that  when  we  reached  the  bull-pen  Doc  Stew- 
art was  laid  out  upon  the  ground  unconscious,  but  he  soon 
came  round  and  was  none  the  worse  for  having  gotten  into 
the  range  of  the  man  who  threw  with  his  left  hand. 

It  was  during  these  years  that  an  incident  occurred  which 
I  look  back  upon  even  now  with  great  emotion.  I  was  al- 
lowed on  one  afternoon  recess  to  go  down  to  the  store. 
There  had  come  into  the  store  some  evidently  well-to-do  peo- 
ple, because  they  had  bought  their  little  three  years  old  boy 
a  big  package  of  long  stick  candy.  Mind  you,  I  was  just  as 
fond  of  stick  candy  as  any  boy  you  could  find,  but  our  re- 
sources were  few  and  I  had  no  money  with  which  to  buy 
stick  candy.  This  little  boy  began  nibbling  on  a  stick  of 
candy  and  dropped  it,  almost  under  the  counter.  Soon  his 
parents  came  for  him  and  he  left  the  stick  of  candy  lying 
there  practically  untouched.  I  began  a  debate  with  myself 
as  to  what  would  be  right  in  the  matter.  I  wanted  the  candy 
as  bad  as  any  boy  ever  craved  a  stick  of  candy  in  his  life. 
I  reasoned  the  matter  out  this  way :  The  child's  father  had 
bought  the  candy  and  paid  for  it,  so  it  did  not  belong  to  the 
people  in  the  store.  The  father  and  mother  of  the  child  had 
taken  the  child  away  and  it  would  never  come  back  to  claim 


BASTROP  COUNTY  SCHOOL  DAYS    49 

the  candy,  so  there  it  was.  As  I  reasoned  thus  with  myself, 
I  approached  a  little  closer  and  yet  a  little  closer  to  the 
candy,  and  finally  I  picked  it  up  and  took  it  with  me.  I  called 
the  attention  of  the  storekeeper  to  the  matter,  and  after 
having  explained  it  to  him  he  told  me  I  had  done  exactly 
right.    I  never  shall  forget  how  good  that  candy  tasted. 

Another  incident  occurred  during  this  period  that  left  its 
impress  upon  my  mind.  A  traveling  overland  country  cir- 
cus came  to  Hopkinsville,  and  my  father,  true  to  his  noble 
nature,  agreed  that  all  of  the  children  should  go.  He  brought 
mother  out  to  Hopkinsville,  with  my  sisters,  and  we  all  went. 
Mr.  Betts  gave  a  holiday  for  the  circus,  and  it  was  really  a 
red  letter  day  of  my  boyhood.  There  were  the  clowns,  the 
man  who  sold  the  prize  boxes,  the  few  animals  they  had  and 
the  acrobatic  performances,  which  were  very  interesting. 
Among  the  other  very  engaging  attractions  was  a  sideshow 
in  which  there  was  a  man  who  had  never  had  any  arms. 
This  man  could  load  and  shoot  a  pistol,  could  write  with 
his  toes  and  could  perform  many  other  wonderful  feats  with 
his  feet.  In  the  circus  proper,  the  most  interesting  thing  to 
me  was  the  badinage  between  the  clown  and  the  ringmaster. 
The  two  chief  jokes  of  that  day  linger  with  me  still.  After 
they  had  been  badgering  each  other  for  quite  a  while,  the 
clown  and  the  ringmaster  darted  from  the  main  tent  into 
the  side  tent,  the  clown  in  advance  of  the  ringmaster.  The 
latter,  with  apparent  offense,  jerked  the  clown  back  behind 
him  and  said : 

"  Get  behind  me !    I  won't  follow  a  fool !  " 

The  clown  very  gracefully  and  gently  dropped  to  the  rear, 
and  replied: 

"  I  am  not  so  particular.    I  will." 

The  ringmaster  asked  the  clown : 

"  Did  you  ever  fall  in  love  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  clown,  "  but  I  fell  in  a  well  once." 

To  which  the  ringmaster  replied: 


50         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

"  You  fool,  you !  What  possible  connection  can  there  be 
between  falling  in  love  and  falling  in  a  well  ?  " 

The  clown  responded : 

"  They  are  both  mighty  hard  to  get  out  of." 

It  was  surely  a  great  day  for  the  Hopkinsville  population 
when  this  circus  came.  There  never  had  been  a  circus  there 
before,  and  the  school  boys  and  girls  had  the  time  of  their 
lives. 

Another  incident  during  this  period  of  my  school  life  was 
the  commission  of  a  murder.  One  morning,  when  my  brother 
and  I  reached  school — we  were  some  thirty  minutes  earlier 
than  necessary — we  found  quite  a  crowd  gathered  around 
the  little  Hopkinsville  saloon.  When  we  came  nearer,  we 
found  that  a  man  had  been  killed  in  the  saloon  about  an 
hour  before.  The  murdered  man  was  a  stranger.  He  had 
comte  into  Hopkinsville  a  few  days  before  unheralded,  had 
given  his  name  and  had  secured  work  of  some  kind.  He 
was  up  early  that  morning  and  went  into  the  saloon  to  get 
a  drink  of  liquor.  The  man  who  was  pursuing  him,  having 
evidently  learned  that  his  victim  was  in  Hopkinsville,  rode 
into  the  town,  hitched  his  horse,  inquired  for  the  man,  was 
told  where  he  was  by  some  unsuspecting  citizen,  and  has- 
tened right  over  to  the  saloon,  where  he  found  the  object  of 
his  search.  He  at  once  opened  fire  on  him  without  giving 
him  a  chance  for  his  life,  and  put  five  or  six  bullets  in  him. 
The  man  died  instantly,  and  the  murderer  coolly  again 
mounted  his  horse  and  galloped  away.  No  citizen  of  that 
town  ever  knew  the  real  name  of  the  murdered  man  or  of 
the  murderer.  There  was  perhaps  some  little  attempt  made 
to  follow  the  murderer,  but  nothing  serious  was  done  to  cap- 
ture him. 

I  can  see  the  pale,  upturned  face  of  that  dead  man  now  as 
I  write,  as  well  as  I  saw  it  on  that  summer  morning  in  the 
long  ago.  It  was  a  pathetic  sight.  He  was  weltering  in  his 
blood  there  in  front  of  the  saloon  counter,  and  there  was  not 


BASTROP  COUNTY  SCHOOL  DAYS    51 

a  friend  to  weep  over  him,  and  no  woman's  gentle  hand  was 
there  to  give  him  that  tender  care  that  comes  to  loved  ones 
gone. 

My  brother  and  I  attended  the  Hopkinsville  school  at  in- 
tervals for  more  than  two  years.  It  was  the  one  epochal 
period  of  our  boyhood  life.  We  made  gigantic  strides  in 
our  quest  for  knowledge  and  discovered  what  we  were 
made  of. 

At  one  of  the  school  exhibitions  I  read  a  composition  en- 
titled, "  The  Advancement  of  Civilization."  In  this  composi- 
tion, though  I  was  a  boy  of  only  twelve,  I  used  such  big 
words  as  "  reverberation  "  and  the  like,  and  my  teacher,  who 
was  the  soul  of  gentleness,  kindness  and  affection,  thought 
that  I  had  "  cribbed  "  the  composition.  So  strong  was  this 
feeling  upon  him  that  he  taxed  me  with  it.  It  almost  broke 
my  heart.  The  composition  was  entirely  original ;  I  had  not 
even  had  the  help  of  my  father  and  mother  in  its  produc- 
tion, and  for  my  teacher  to  think  that  I  would  be  guilty  of 
dishonorable  conduct  was  a  wound  from  which  I  have  not 
yet  recovered.  Of  course,  when  my  teacher  saw  how  it 
affected  me,  he  took  me  to  his  heart  and  tried  to  make  it 
right,  but  nothing  he  could  ever  say  made  it  right,  because 
I  knew  that  for  a  time,  at  least,  I  had  been  under  suspicion. 
One  view  I  afterwards  took  of  the  matter  was  that  it  was, 
in  fact,  a  compliment  to  m5y  intelligence,  because  I  had  done 
better  than  he  thought  I  could  do,  but  it  was  a  distinct  blow 
at  my  honesty,  as  no  honest  boy  or  man  will  steal  the  product 
of  another's  brain  and  claim  it  for  his  own. 

We  gave  up  going  to  Hopkinsville  school  in  1872.  I  was 
at  that  time  fourteen  years  old.  It  was  not  the  last  school 
I  attended,  but  it  was  by  far  the  best.  We  quit  largely  be- 
cause the  school  quit.  Mr.  Betts,  having  married  a  Gon- 
zales lady,  closed  out  the  school  and  moved  from  Hopkins- 
ville to  Gonzales.  It  was  a  sad  day  for  the  little  town  when 
the  Hopkinsville  Academy  closed  its  doors,  and  it  was  a  sad- 


52         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

der  day  for  two  callow  Texas  lads  who  had  as  insatiable  a 
thirst  for  knowledge  as  ever  pulsed  in  a  boy's  heart. 

The  last  school  I  attended  was  one  taught  by  Dr.  Hayes, 
who  was  a  physician  by  profession,  but  not  finding  a  lucra- 
tive practice  opening  up  to  him  promptly,  took  up  the  school 
on  Hallmark's  Prairie.  My  brother  did  not  attend  this 
school.  There,  for  the  first  time,  I  fell  in  love.  Dr.  Hayes 
had  a  beautiful  step-daughter,  Miss  Helen  Bell.  She  was 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  women  I  had  ever  seen.  She  was 
twenty-one  when  I  was  fourteen,  but  I  fell  madly  in  love 
with  her,  though  I  never  dared  to  tell  her  of  it.  I  loved  her 
in  secret.  I  would  give  her  the  most  delicate  attentions  that 
any  boy  could  devise,  but  she  thought  them  the  result  of  the 
natural  deference  that  a  school-boy  would  pay  to  his  teacher. 
It  was  really  humorous,  though  then  I  thought  it  serious. 
It  was  just  as  foolish  as  foolish  could  be,  but  I  did  not  think 
of  that  phase  of  the  subject.  In  1897  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  her,  when  the  Baptist  State  Convention  met  in  San 
Antonio,  and  of  telling  her  of  my  youthful  infatuation.  She 
had  married  Tom  Adair  and  they  were  then  living  at'^Wael- 
der.  She  laughed  heartily  when  I  told  her  of  my  boyhood 
love  for  her.  She  said  exactly  what  I  expected  she  would 
say :  that  she  had  no  thought  of  such  a  thing. 

The  school  taught  by  Dr.  Hayes  did  not  last  long.  I  at- 
tended it  a  part  of  one  year.  It  was  my  last  school,  and  I 
look  back  upon  that  short  period  of  study  as  one  of  the 
bright  spots  in  my  boyhood  life. 

But  everything  a  boy  needs  to  know  is  not  learned  in 
school.  There  were  boys  born  in  the  narrow  circle  which 
first  I  knew  who  not  only  dreamed  of  far-off  college  towns 
and  triumphant,  happy  graduation  days,  but  who  were  priv- 
ileged to  know  about  it  all,  to  see  it  face  to  face,  and  after- 
wards come  home  medaled  and  degreed  and  finished  to  the 
highest  point.  While  these  were  gone  away,  I  was  not  idle, 
but  busy  in  the  fields  and  woods  and  learning  those  serious 


BASTROP  COUNTY  SCHOOL  DAYS    53 

actual  things  that  make  up  so  much  of  life.  Those  country 
schools  were  not  much.  Sometims'es  we  would  get  ahead  of 
the  teacher.  When  we  would  come  to  things  the  teacher 
didn't  know,  he  would  pass  us  on  by  saying,  "  This  doesn't 
need  to  be  known,"  and  by  telling  other  lies  like  that,  and 
make  friends  with  his  conscience  by  giving  us  a  long  play- 
time at  noon.  We  had  our  Friday  afternoon  performances, 
when  speeches  would  be  said.  Many  were  the  Marys  who 
had  little  lambs,  with  fleeces  white  as  snow,  and  enough  boys 
stood  on  burning  decks  to  man  a  navy.  And  there  never 
were  as  many  little  stars  that  were  enjoined  to  twinkle,  twin- 
kle all  the  night  as  there  were  then,  and  whole  regiments 
of  boys  pointed  toward  the  rafters  and  exclaimed : 

"  How  I  wonder  what  you  are, 
Up  above  the  world  so  high, 
Like  a  diamond  in  the  sky ! " 

Not  that  any  of  us  had  ever  seen  a  diamond.  The  thought 
that  was  always  suggested  to  me  when  we  got  the  stars  to 
twinkling  like  diamonds  in  the  sky  was  the  Diamond  R  cat- 
tle brand  that  was  used  by  one  of  the  many  ranchmen  of  the 
great  Southwest.  While  the  stars,  like  diamonds  in  the  sky, 
were  getting  in  their  work,  my  mind  would  wander  to  the 
woods  and  prairies,  and  I  would  calculate  as  to  how  many 
"  mavericks  "  the  Diamond  R  brand  had  gone  on  that  spring. 
And  then  I  would  think  of  my  father's  old  brand  and  his 
new  one.  My  father  was  not  a  born  ranchman.  As  I  have 
said,  he  was  reared  over  in  Kentucky,  where  the  people  had 
old-fashioned  ways  and  notions.  Over  there  to  have  "  mav- 
ericked  "  a  yearling  would  have  been  a  theft.  It  was  thus 
that,  after  the  Civil  War  was  over  and  we  moved  to  South- 
west Texas,  he  never  became  adjusted  to  the  new  regime,  in 
which  every  man  branded  every  stray  unbranded  calf  that 
came  his  way.  Not  that  only,  but  in  the  early  spring,  before 
the  yearlings  shed,  it  often  happened  that  the  too  enterpris- 


54         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

ing  cowmen  branded  those  that  had  been  already  branded, 
and  when  the  long  hair  was  no  more,  the  same  lean,  incon- 
sequential calf  bespoke  two  owners. 

It  was  to  save  the  like  of  this  that  my  father  changed  his 
brand.  It  was  first  a  simple  boot — that  was  all.  The  "  boot 
brand  "  became  well  known,  but  it  was  so  small  that  many 
times  our  booted  yearlings  came  home  in  the  spring  with 
other  and  newer  brands  upon  them,  and  thus  came  about 
the  change.  The  little  boot  passed  out  except  for  horses, 
and  his  new  brand  was  five  letters — ^his  Christian  name — 
and  spanned  the  yearling's  side  from  shoulder-blade  to  thigh. 
I  put  it  on  many  a  lean  and  hungry  calf — all  of  them  our 
own — and  when  it  was  well  put  on  this  is  the  way  it  read : 
EATON. 

I  never  graduated. 

I  quit,  but  not  before  taking  my  degree — the  degree  of 
C.  S. — Common  Sense — that  qualified  the  alumnus  to  parse, 
conjugate,  solve  problems  in  university  algebra,  analyze  a 
gem  from  Shakespeare,  make  a  Friday  evening  speech,  skin 
a  cow,  "  bust  a  broncho,"  brand  a  calf,  fence  a  field,  shoot 
a  gun,  swim  a  river,  work  a  farm  or  teach  a  school.  And 
out  of  such  country  schools  have  come  our  Lincolns,  our 
Spurgeons  and  our  Charles  Dickenses.  Every  year  our  col- 
leges turn  out  their  coterie  of  kid-gloved  effeminates  who 
are  set  to  swarm  for  a  brief  period  around  law  offices,  doc- 
tor shops  and  school  rooms,  and  then  sink  into  oblivion. 
They  lack  the  grit  and  gumption  of  the  gawky  country  lad 
who  took  a  course  in  shop  or  farm  while  the  leggy  city  youth 
was  smoking  cigarettes  and  running  'round  at  night. 


VI 

SOME  BOYHOOD  REMINISCENCES 

IN  direct  connection  with  the  question  of  our  school  days, 
I  will  set  down  here  some  corollary  facts  that  may  be 
of  interest  to  the  reader,  and  especially  to  boys  and 
young  men  who  are  striving  to  secure  an  education.  My 
brother  and  I  did  not  depend  upon  the  school  for  our  educa- 
tion. When  I  would  go  down  to  the  field,  I  always  took 
books  with  me,  and  later,  when  my  father  found  his  cattle 
increasing  and  I  was  sent  out  to  herd  them,  I  always  tied 
books  to  my  saddle,  so  that  when  the  cattle  were  quiet  I 
would  read  my  books.  I  spent  many  a  happy  hour  thus  in 
the  further  quest  for  knowledge. 

My  father  abhorred  fiction.  He  denounced  all  books  of 
fiction  as  lies  and  deceptions  and  most  heartily  opposed  either 
the  purchase  or  perusal  of  such  works.  Such  novels  as  my 
brother  and  I  read,  we  had  to  read  surreptitiously.  I  re- 
member as  well  as  can  be  the  first  "  really  and  truly  "  novel 
I  read.  It  was  Beulah,  by  Mrs.  Augusta  J.  Evans,  who 
became  later  Mrs.  Wilson.  My  father  never  saw  this  book. 
If  he  had,  he  would  have  confiscated  it  and  gently  laid  it  in 
the  fire.  My  oldest  sister  borrowed  it  from  some  neighbor, 
and  after  she  had  read  it,  let  me  read  it.  I  read  it  out  be- 
hind the  house  in  the  chimney-corner,  at  meal-time,  when  I 
would  hurry  through  the  meal  and  run  out  and  read  before 
my  father  finished.  It  was  rather  a  difficult  task,  as  I  read 
every  word  of  it  standing  up,  and  was  constantly  afraid  that 
my  father  might  hasten  through  and  find  me,  but  he  never 

55 


56         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

did.    I  afterwards  read  St.  Elmo  and  others  of  Mrs.  Wil- 
son's works. 

At  about  this  time,  my  brother  and  I  borrowed  from  Jesse 
and  Bryan  Heard,  who  lived  at  Hopkinsville,  seventeen  dime 
novels.  They  were  of  the  heroic  type,  such  as  Three  Buck- 
ets of  Blood,  White-headed  Zeke,  The  Sailor  Crusoe,  and 
other  works  of  that  kind.  They  were  blood-curdling  Indian 
stories,  and  when  we  had  finished  the  assortment,  we  were 
about  ready  to  secure  tomahawks,  scalping  knives  and  other 
accoutrements  and  go  out  as  Indian  hunters.  My  father 
knew  nothing  of  any  of  this,  but  I  am  afraid  my  mother  did. 
She  did  not  share  his  views  on  the  question  of  fiction.  She 
had  the  literary  bent,  and  could  see  no  harm  in  a  good  story, 
whether  it  were  fact  or  fiction.  She  never  encouraged  us 
in  disobedience,  but  now  and  then,  when  my  father's  views 
ran  contrary  to  hers,  and  when  she  felt  it  was  entirely  right 
to  do  so,  she  would  help  my  brother  and  me  in  the  matter 
of  securing  such  books  of  fiction  as  she  thought  we  ought 
to  read. 

She  helped  me,  without  my  father's  knowledge,  in  an- 
other way.  I  wanted  to  learn  to  play  the  fiddle.  To  use  a 
latter  day  expression,  I  was  crazy  about  it.  One  day  when 
I  went  to  Hopkinsville  to  mill,  I  bought  a  fiddle  from  Ben 
Key,  on  credit.  It  had  only  two  strings,  and  a  poor  excuse 
for  a  fiddle  bow,  but  I  took  it  home  and  gave  it  into  the 
custody  of  my  mother.  She  hid  it  in  her  own  trunk,  and 
we  kept  it  secret  from  father.  He  had  as  great  an  antipathy 
against  fiddles  as  he  had  against  fiction.  He  thought  the 
devil  was  in  the  fiddle  because  the  fiddle  was  the  instrument 
that  was  used  at  all  the  country  dances.  He  had  the  old- 
time  notion  that  the  fiddle  was  wholly  an  instrument  of  evil, 
and  he  abominated  it  with  an  unspeakable  aversion.  Not 
so,  my  mother.  Her  father  had  been  a  fiddler  in  the  old 
Kentucky  home,  and  she  had  a  soft  spot  in  her  heart  for 


SOME  BOYHOOD  REMINISCENCES         57 

her  boy,  who  also  wanted  to  learn  to  play.  There  were 
no  violin  teachers  down  Southwest  Texas  way.  The  old- 
time  Texas  fiddlers  were  self-taught.  They  would  catch 
tunes  now  and  then  from  other  fiddlers,  but  on  the  whole 
they  learned  the  tunes  first,  and  after  familiarizing  them- 
selves with  the  use  of  the  fiddle  and  the  bow,  they  played 
those  tunes  on  their  own  violins.  Daniel  Johnson,  old  Uncle 
Daniel  Johnson's  youngest  son,  was  a  good  fiddler  and  a 
dear  friend  of  mine.  He  helped  me  more  than  any  other 
boy.  Soon  I  had  become  rather  proficient  on  the  fiddle.  I 
never  felt  that  I  could  play  the  violin,  but  I  played  the  fiddle 
handsomely  and  had  a  happy  time  over  it. 

Such  fondness  as  I  had  for  the  fiddle  was  bound  to  come 
to  my  father's  knowledge,  and  when  I  grew  older,  I  told 
him  all  about  it.  He  was  a  stern  man  and  his  views  re- 
mained unchanged,  but  when  he  saw  how  I  loved  music,  he 
told  me  that  I  need  not  hide  it  any  longer — that  I  might 
have  the  fiddle  and  play  it  at  home.  Dear,  kind,  noble,  gen- 
erous heart  was  he,  always  yielding  when  the  hearts  of  his 
children  were  involved.  He  never  did  become  reconciled 
to  novels,  but  in  after  years  I  played  the  fiddle  for  him  many 
times.  As  he  grew  older,  his  views  changed,  and  while  he 
never  cared  much  for  fiddle  music,  he  lost  a  great  deal  of 
his  former  antipathy  to  the  instrument. 

One  of  the  greatest  festivities  of  those  years  was  coon- 
hunting.  Raccoons  grow  perennially  in  most  parts  of 
Texas,  and  they  were  very  prolific  in  Bastrop  County.  Sat- 
urday nights,  when  our  week's  work  was  done,  the  neigh- 
borhood boys  would  gather  together,  and  we  would  go  out 
hunting  coons.  Sometimes  we  stayed  even  beyond  midnight 
and  were  always  reprimanded  for  it.  The  dogs  would  tree 
the  coons  and  we  would  so  punish  them  as  to  bring  them 
out  of  the  tree  so  that  the  dogs  could  kill  them,  or  shoot 
them  out  of  the  tree  with  our  guns  and  revolvers.  The  tra- 
ditional Southern  luxury  is  '  possum,  but  really  the  coon  is 


58         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

more  palatable  than  the  '  possum,  if  he  is  properly  cleaned 
and  cooked.  We  would  go  coon  hunting  about  the  time  of 
frost.  We  caught  some  splendid  fat  coons  one  November 
night,  skinned  them  and  dressed  them  while  we  were  out 
hunting,  and  when  we  reached  home  threw  them  on  the 
gallery  roof  to  take  up  the  night  air  and  the  frost.  The  next 
day  my  mother  baked  one  and  I  do  not  remember  ever  to 
have  had  a  more  toothsome  dinner  than  that  meal  was. 

It  was  during  these  nights  that  I  first  began  to  fool  with 
smoking.  I  thought  it  very  smart  to  smoke  and  that  no  boy 
could  be  really  grown  up  unless  he  formed  this  habit.  At 
first  I  began  to  make  shuck  cigarettes.  We  would  carry  the 
shucks  out  with  us,  and  make  the  cigarettes  as  we  lingered 
around  the  fire  at  night.  After  I  learned  to  smoke  the  shuck 
cigarettes  without  discomfort,  I  would  borrow  a  tiny  bit  of 
tobacco  and  put  in  one,  and  it  was  thus  that  I  began  to  learn 
to  smoke  tobacco  cigarettes.  Later  our  cigarette  rollers  were 
made  of  brown  paper.  There  were  many  Mexicans  there 
and  they  were  all  cigarette  smokers.  In  this  way  I  began 
to  form  a  liking  for  tobacco  smoking,  which,  I  am  ashamed 
to  say,  I  kept  up,  at  intervals,  for  several  years. 

My  father  learned  to  use  tobacco  when  he  was  six  years 
old.  His  father  was  a  tobacco  grower,  and  when  he  was  a 
lad,  he  had  much  to  do  in  assisting  in  the  growing  of  Ken- 
tucky tobacco.  He  learned  to  chew  and  smoke  and  kept 
both  up  to  his  dying  day.  He  used  tobacco  very  sparingly 
in  his  last  years,  but  quite  intemperately  in  earlier  life.  Thus 
I  was  reared  in  the  atmpsphere  of  tobacco  using.  It  was 
common  in  Southwest  Texas  in  those  days,  and  it  was  not 
at  all  remarkable  that  the  boys  followed  in  the  footsteps  of 
their  fathers.  Every  father  should  look  well  to  himself  be- 
fore he  confirms  himself  in  a  habit  that  may  become  destruc- 
tive to  his  son. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  I  received  my  first  religious 
impression.     A  sermon  was  preached  at  the  little  school- 


I 


SOME  BOYHOOD  REMINISCENCES         59 

house  near  Jeddo  by  Rev.  John  Orchard,  one  of  the  pioneer 
Baptist  missionaries.  He  was  an  Englishman  by  birth,  but 
was  giving  his  Hfe  to  religious  and  missionary  work  where 
he  thought  it  was  most  needed.  He  preached  a  sermon  at 
the  school-house  on  this  text :  "  For  we  are  kept  by  the 
power  of  God  through  faith  unto  salvation  ready  to  be  re- 
vealed in  the  last  time."  I  even  remember  some  of  the  divis- 
ions of  his  sermon.  I  was  at  the  time  but  a  very  little  boy, 
but  his  sermon  impressed  me  deeply  and  I  cherish  its  mem- 
ory and  the  memory  of  this  good  man  with  a  grateful  heart. 
Another  text  by  a  Missionary  Baptist  preacher,  Rev.  L.  S. 
Cox,  greatly  impressed  me.  It  was  this :  "  He  that  loveth 
not  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  let  him  be  anathema  maranatha/' 
Those  were  awfully  big  words  to  fire  at  a  little  boy,  but  I 
remember  the  text  and  the  sermon  and  the  gracious  manner 
in  which  the  sermon  was  received. 

The  most  vivid  religious  impression,  however,  which  I 
received  in  those  days  came  from  a  sermon  preached  by  my 
own  dear  father.  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  yet  revealed 
in  this  chronicle  the  fact  that  he  was  an  ordained  Baptist 
preacher,  at  that  time  affiliated  with  the  Hardshell  Baptists. 
He  was  preaching  on  "  The  End  of  the  World."  He  be- 
lieved the  end  of  time  was  then  impending  and  preached  it 
with  such  power  that  I  felt  sure  the  world  would  end  before 
I  could  get  back  to  my  mother.  I  ran  out  of  the  house  be- 
fore the  sermon  was  over,  crying  like  my  heart  would  break, 
and  ran  every  step  of  the  way  home — something  over  a  half 
mile.  When  I  got  home,  my  mother  was  not  yet  in  bed  and 
I  fell  into  her  arms  to  tell  her  that  the  end  of  the  world  was 
coming  that  night  and  I  was  not  ready  for  it.  My  sad  plight 
touched  her  deeply.  She  consoled  me  as  best  she  could,  and 
told  me  that,  while  the  end  of  the  world  must  come  some 
time,  it  n^ight  not  come  that  night,  but  that  whenever  it  came 
I  should  be  ready  for  it  and  should  give  my  heart  to  Christ 
and  be  a  Christian  boy.    That  was  a  religious  impression 


60         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

from  which  I  never  entirely  escaped,  though  in  after  years 
I  wandered  far  from  God  and  became  quite  a  wicked  boy. 

Most  of  the  preachers  that  I  knew  in  my  boyhood  were 
Hardshell  Baptists.  They  called  themselves  Primitive  Bap- 
tists. There  was  a  whole  family  of  Bakers  who  were  preach- 
ers— Jim  Baker,  Abe  Baker,  John  Baker  and  William  Baker 
— four  of  them.  They  were  good  men,  and  Jim  Baker,  espe- 
cially, was  a  man  of  very  much  more  than  the  ordinary  abil- 
ity. He  died  but  a  year  or  two  ago,  after  having  lived  to  a 
great  age.  Abe  Baker  was  the  one  that  we  knew  best.  He 
was  often  in  our  home  and  was  a  man  of  fine  character  in 
every  way.  The  last  time  I  ever  saw  him  was  in  the  little 
old  school-house  down  on  the  south  edge  of  Hallmark's 
Prairie,  when  he  preached  a  sermon  on  a  Sunday  morning 
shortly  before  we  left  that  part  of  Texas.  He  knew  me  well 
and  loved  me  and  I  loved  him.  I  was  at  that  time  in  my 
eighteenth  year.  He  went  through  the  audience,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Hardshell  Baptist  preachers,  shaking  hands 
with  those  he  desired  to  impress.  He  finally  came  to  me,  and 
putting  his  hand  on  my  head,  he  said : 

"  This  may  be  the  last  time  I  will  ever  see  you  in  this 
life.    Remember  your  Creator." 

That  was  a  most  impressive  exhortation  and  one  that  lin- 
gers with  me  now.  The  dear  good  man  has  long  since  been 
in  heaven  and  I  cherish  his  memory  with  a  grateful  heart. 

His  brother,  John  Baker,  was  exceedingly  kind  to  us 
boys.  He  was  a  splendid  barber  in  his  way.  He  didn't 
shave  any  of  us,  because  we  had  nothing  on  our  faces  to 
shave,  but  he  used  to  trim  our  hair  and  he  did  it  well.  He 
was  jolly,  humane,  gentle-hearted  and  loving,  and  while  he 
did  not  class  with  Jim  Baker  and  Abe  Baker  in  the  matter 
of  culture  and  intelligence,  he  had  as  big  a  heart  as  any  man 
could  carry  in  a  bosom  of  his  size. 

Speaking  of  Abe  Baker,  he  had  had  a  remjarkable  religious 
experience.     He  was  under  deep  conviction  of  sin  up  on 


SOME  BOYHOOD  REMINISCENCES  61 

Tinney's  Creek  near  his  home.  He  had  been  a  wild  and 
reckless  boy.  So  deep  was  his  conviction  that  he  was  pros- 
trate on  his  back  in  the  bed  of  a  wagon  on  a  summer  day 
while  the  meeting  was  in  progress.  He  had  lost  all  hope  of 
the  grace  of  God  and  had  given  himself  up,  not  only  to  die 
physically  but  to  die  eternally,  yet  he  still  was  praying ;  and 
as  he  prayed,  he  said  that  he  saw  Heaven  open,  saw  Jesus 
actually  come  down,  and  heard  His  voice,  and  the  Master 
spoke  the  words  of  forgiving  grace  and  love.  He  arose 
exultantly  shouting  the  praises  of  God,  and  from  that  day 
went  to  preaching  the  Gospel. 

I  never  doubted  his  sincerity,  and  I  am  not  prepared  to 
say  that  he  did  not  see  exactly  what  he  claimed  he  saw.  He 
lived  an  upright,  godly  life,  devoted  his  entire  time  as  best 
he  could  from  his  farm  work  to  the  preaching  of  the  Gos- 
pel ;  he  never  allowed  any  one  to  give  him  a  penny  of  pay, 
which  I  think  was  a  mistake,  and  went  on  to  his  grave  sing- 
ing the  praises  of  his  Redeemer. 

You  may  think  and  say  what  you  please  about  these  dear, 
good  men,  but  for  my  part  I  have  no  unkind  words  con- 
cerning thenij.  There  are  many  of  them  in  this  wide,  sad 
world  today — men  of  God  who,  though  not  fully  instructed 
in  all  the  ways  of  Christ,  are  doing  their  work  for  Him  in 
their  own  kind  way  and  leading  countless  souls  into  the  bet- 
ter life. 

One  of  my  best  loved  uncles  was  a  great-uncle,  Charles 
Galloway.  He  was  my  grandmother  Cranfill's  brother.  He 
was  a  dear,  good  man,  but  he  had  lived  to  be  seventy  years 
of  age  and  had  never  joined  the  church.  He  lived  as  up- 
right and  godly  a  life  as  any  church  member  I  ever  knew, 
but  he  had  what  he  called  a  "  little  hope,"  and  he  did  not 
think  it  was  enough  on  which  to  come  into  the  church.  He 
was  a  constant  church  attendant  and  one  of  the  most  depend- 
able church  workers  in  the  community.  Everybody  loved 
him,  believed  in  him  and  trusted  him.    On  a  certain  Sunday 


62         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

night,  after  Rev.  Abe  Baker  had  preached  one  of  his  most 
appealing  sermons,  the  congregation  was  finally  dismissed. 
After  the  benediction.  Uncle  Charles  said  to  the  preacher : 

"  Brother  Baker,  if  you  had  opened  the  doors  of  the 
church  tonight,  I  would  have  joined." 

Brother  Baker  was  a  man  of  the  keenest  and  most  un- 
erring intuitions,  so  he  grasped  the  hand  of  Uncle  Charlie 
and  said : 

"  Brother  Galloway,  we  will  convene  the  church  in  con- 
ference immediately." 

Whereupon  he  announced  that  Brother  Charles  Galloway 
had  applied  for  membership.  My  dear  old  uncle  was  cor- 
nered. He  had  been  too  timid  hitherto  to  apply  to  the  church 
to  be  received,  but  now  under  the  circumstances  he  could 
not  possibly  back  out.  He  told  his  experience,  was  joyfully 
received  and  heartily  welcomed.  The  oldest  men  and  women 
in  the  house  were  in  tears,  the  dear  old  saints  embraced  each 
other  in  their  joyous  praises  of  God,  and  I  have  never  seen 
Brother  Baker  happier  than  he  was  that  night.  On  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday,  Uncle  Charles  was  baptized  in  one  of  the 
crystal  pools  of  Peach  Creek.  I  will  have  something  more 
to  say  of  this  dear  uncle  again  in  this  narrative.  For  the 
present,  we  leave  him  as  a  new  church  member  at  three  score 
years  and  ten.  He  lived  to  be  ninety-two  and  would  not 
then  have  died  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  fact  that  his  wife, 
ninety  years  of  age,  was  accidentally  killed.  The  shock  was 
so  great  that  dear  Uncle  Charles  did  not  long  survive  the 
death  of  his  wife. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  of  our  experiences  of 
this  period  was  the  organization  and  maintenance  of  the 
Hallmark's  Prairie  Debating  Society.  My  brother  and  I 
were  the  leading  spirits  in  this  movement  and  continued  so 
until  we  left  that  part  of  Texas.  My  brother  was  always 
on  one  side  of  every  question  and  I  on  the  other.  The  other 
boys  in  the  community  looked  to  us  to  lead  them,  and  we 


SOME  BOYHOOD  REMINISCENCES         63 

took  pleasure  in  doing  so.  We  debated  many  momentous 
questions,  such  as :  Resolved,  that  the  works  of  nature  are 
more  attractive  to  the  eye  than  the  works  of  art ;  Resolved, 
that  horses  are  more  useful  to  mankind  than  cattle,  and 
many  other  issues.  The  night  on  which  we  debated  the 
horse  and  cow  question,  Jim  Bellamy,  who  afterwards  be- 
came one  of  the  most  expert  mechanics  in  the  State,  was 
chosen  to  represent  the  horse.  He  was  a  great  big,  over- 
grown boy,  weighing  nearly  200  pounds.  He  was  handy 
with  his  hands  in  all  kinds  of  mechanical  work,  but  was 
clumsy  with  his  tongue.  It  was  a  great  embarrassment  to 
him  to  get  up  before  an  audience,  but  Jim  was  brave,  and 
that  night  when  the  question  for  the  affirmative  was  called, 
he  arose  and  made  the  following  speech: 

"  Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  I  think  a  horse" 
— then  he  choked  down.  Then  he  sat  down.  Never  more 
could  we  get  Jim  up  in  one  of  our  debating  societies.  He 
was  a  splendid  fellow,  and  one  of  the  dearest  friends  we 
had  in  our  boyhood. 

During  the  time  when  this  Debating  Society  was  at  its 
flood,  the  Debating  Society  at  Tinney's  Creek  challenged  the 
Debating  Society  of  Hallmark's  Prairie  to  a  joint  debate. 
We  accepted  their  challenge  and  fared  forth  one  Saturday 
afternoon  to  meet  the  Tinney's  Creek  boys  on  their  own 
ground.  I  was  leader  of  our  crowd,  and  what  I  did  in  indoc- 
trinating them  in  the  way  to  victory  was  a  plenty.  When 
we  reached  the  place  of  meeting  they  took  different  parts 
of  the  hall  so  that  they  might  carry  out  my  commands.  I 
was  the  leading  champion  for  our  society  and  I  had  in- 
structed these  boys  that  when  I  would  make  a  certain  ges- 
ture they  were  to  applaud.  Applause  is  very  contagious. 
One  good  applauder  in  an  audience  can  touch  the  whole 
audience  off  at  any  time  when  a  reasonably  good  point  is 
made.  The  Tinney's  Creek  boy,  who  led  out  in  the  debate, 
had  no  applause  at  all.    They  all  sat  like  blockheads,  heard 


64         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

his  vociferations  and  watched  his  gesticulations  without  any 
emotion  whatsoever.  When,  however,  I  arose  to  answer 
him  and  after  a  few  minutes  of  introductory  remarks,  I 
raised  my  hand  in  a  certain  way,  six  of  my  trained  leaders 
started  the  applause,  and  it  was  echoed  and  re-echoed  all 
over  the  house.  The  same  happened  time  and  time  again 
while  I  was  on  my  feet,  and  the  judges  as  well  as  the  au- 
dience were  greatly  impressed  by  the  approval  my  remarks 
received.  It  was  what  you  would  call,  if  you  were  in  France, 
a  coup  d'etat.  I  am  not  sure  whether  I  made  a  better  speech 
than  the  other  boy  or  not,  but  I  do  know  that  we  out-gen- 
eraled  them,  and  when  the  debate  was  over,  we  got  the  deci- 
sion and  went  away  with  flying  colors. 

One  of  the  incidents  in  this  debate  was  a  story  that  I  told. 
It  ran  as  follows :  Upon  one  occasion  a  rich  American  land- 
lord employed  as  his  coachman  an  Irishman  fresh  from  the 
Old  Country.  The  Irishman  had  been  in  his  employ  but  a 
day  or  two  when,  on  leaving  home  for  the  day  on  his  splen- 
did steed,  the  landlord  called  the  Irish  coachman  to  him  and 
said: 

"  Pat,  I  am  going  away  and  will  be  gone  all  day.  While  I 
am  gone,  I  want  you  to  grease  my  carriage." 

"  All  right,  all  right.    It  will  be  done,"  Pat  replied. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  when  the  landlord  returned,  Pat 
m,et  him  smilingly  at  the  gate,  and  the  following  conversa- 
tion ensued: 

The  Landlord :  "  Well,  Pat,  you  greased  my  carriage  all 
right,  as  I  told  you  ?  " 

Pat :  "  Faith,  and  sure  I  did.  I  greased  it  good.  I 
greased  it  all  over ;  all  of  the  top  and  all  of  the  body  and  all 
of  the  running  gear,  and  greased  it  perfectly  except  the  little 
place  where  the  wheel  runs  on,  and  I  couldn't  get  to  that." 

My  application  of  this  story  was  that  our  ^opponents  in 
the  debate  had  talked  all  around  the  question,  had  thor- 
oughly discussed  all  facts  and  incidents  foreign  to  the  issue 


SOME  BOYHOOD  REMINISCENCES         65 

in  hand,  but  had  never  once  touched  the  question  under  re- 
view. 

This  story  made  a  great  hit  and  was,  as  I  believe,  largely 
responsible  for  our  victory. 

During  these  years,  my  father  began  to  take  a  more  ac- 
tive interest  in  the  cattle  business.  In  his  medical  practice, 
he  took  in  on  account  a  great  many  cattle  of  various  kinds, 
and  now  and  then  would  accept  a  horse.  The  result  was 
that  he  began  to  gather  together  quite  an  array  of  stock.  I 
loved  to  work  with  horses  and  cattle.  I  was  almost  reared 
on  horseback.  I  loved  to  ride.  I  enjoyed  being  out  in  the 
open,  and  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  master  the  art  of 
lassoing,  which  was  so  very  important  to  every  cowboy.  With 
one  exception,  I  was  the  best  hand  my  father  ever  had  with 
his  stock.  That  exception  was  a  mulatto  Negro.  He  was 
one  of  the  smoothest  artists  in  handling  stock  of  all  kinds 
that  I  have  ever  known. 


VII 
"  BUSTING  A  BRONCHO  " 

INDISSOLUBLY  linked  with  the  stock  business  was  the 
"  busting  "  of  bronchos.  A  broncho  was  a  wild  horse. 
Primarily  a  broncho  meant  a  Spanish  horse,  but  the 
word  came  to  be  used  in  connection  with  all  wild  horses  of 
every  kind,  whether  they  were  grown  wild  out  on  the  range 
or  were  the  offspring  of  tame  horses  on  the  ranch  or  farm. 
Every  Texas  boy,  at  a  certain  period  of  his  growth  and  de- 
velopment, found  it  necessary  to  tackle  the  broncho.  The 
broncho  was  allowed  to  run  wild  until  he  was  three  or  four 
years  old.  It  depended  quite  largely  upon  the  necessities 
of  the  case,  whether  he  was  taken  up  younger  or  was  left  to 
develop  more  before  he  was  broken.  The  older  he  grew,  the 
tougher  the  job  we  had  when  he  was  "  busted,"  but  none  of 
the  jobs  were  easy  ones.  There  were  professional  broncho 
"  busters  "  in  every  neighborhood,  and  the  ruling  rate — what 
we  might  call  the  union  scale — was  $5  a  head  for  breaking 
them.  In  our  case,  we  broke  most  of  our  own  bronchos.  It 
was  only  an  exceedingly  tough  case  that  was  turned  over  to 
a  professional.  I  learned  to  ride,  and,  as  I  afterwards 
boasted,  I  could  ride  anything  that  wore  hair  that  would 
stand  up.  I  had  practiced  on  yearlings,  earlier  on  calves., 
and  finally  on  bronchos.  The  manner  in  which  a  broncho 
was  "  busted  "  was  as  follows :  He  would  first  be  driven 
into  the  horse  lot  along  with  other  horses,  and  after  he  was 
thus  safely  penned,  he  would  be  lassoed,  or  roped,  as  we 
called  it.  The  word  "  lasso  "  is  a  dictionary  word  that  has 
found  its  way  permanently  into  the  literature  of  early  Texas 

66 


'Busting  a  Broncho." 


"BUSTING  A  BRONCHO"  67 

days,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  never  called  a  rope  a  lasso. 
We  called  it  a  rope,  and  we  called  lassoing  a  horse  or  a  cow, 
roping  them.  These  ropes  were  made  on  purpose  for  the 
business.  A  loop  would  be  formed  in  the  end  of  the  rope — 
what  we  would  call  a  running  noose.  Some  of  these  ropes 
were  hair  ropes  and  made  by  the  Mexicans,  but  most  gen- 
erally they  were  the  regular  sea  grass  rope  so  commonly 
known  in  all  parts  of  the  West  today.  The  size  of  the  rope 
usually  was  one-half  to  five-eighths  of  an  inch,  and  some- 
times, for  extraordinary  occasions,  we  would  have  ropes 
that  were  as  large  as  three-quarter-inch  size.  After  the 
broncho  was  safely  penned  he  would  be  roped  and  then  the 
fun  would  begin.  As  soon  as  he  could  be  brought  near 
enough  to  the  man  who  had  roped  him,  he  would  be  blind- 
folded. That  was  a  long  step  in  the  direction  of  his  subju- 
gation. After  he  was  blindfolded,  the  right  kind  of  a  stiff- 
bit  bridle  would  be  placed  on  him  and  then  he  would  be  sad- 
dled. There  was  danger  attendant  upon  every  step  of  the 
process. 

After  he  was  saddled,  a  substantial  stick  from  two  to 
two  and  a  half  feet  long  would  be  wrapped  in  a  piece  of 
blanket  so  that  it  could  not  in  any  wise  injure  the  rider,  and 
tied  on  the  saddle  in  front.  In  our  own  language,  we  tied 
it  to  the  horn  of  the  saddle,  so  that  when  the  rider  mounted 
the  saddle,  this  stick  was  in  front  of  him  transversely.  After 
this  was  done  the  stirrups  would  be  tied  together  under  the 
horse,  so  that  the  rider's  feet  would  not  be  flying  in  the  air. 
There  were  some  very  expert  horsemen  who  omitted  both 
of  these  precautions,  but  the  rule  was  for  the  rider  to  be 
thus  protected.  After  this  was  accomplished,  the  rope  would 
be  "  done  up,"  as  we  called  it,  tied  near  the  horn  of  the  sad- 
dle, and  the  horse  would  be  held  until  the  rider  would  mount. 
Then  the  blind  would  be  lifted  from  the  broncho's  eyes  and 
he  would  be  allowed  to  go  and  cut  his  capers. 

We  called  it  "  pitching."     The   Northern  man  calls  it 


68         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

bucking.  Called  by  any  name,  it  was  an  exercise  that  the 
tenderfoot  may  well  wish  to  avoid.  The  broncho  would 
begin  his  operations  in  this  way,  and  finding  it  impossible 
to  relieve  himself  of  the  rider,  he  would  run.  There  was  no 
telling  where  he  would  land  when  he  ran.  It  was  just  as 
likely  that  he  would  run  into  a  fence  as  any  other  way.  He 
was  not  "  bridle-wise  "  and  the  rider  had  to  control  him  as 
best  he  could.  The  greatest  danger  was  that  he  would  run 
into  a  tree  or  into  a  gulley  and  turn  a  somersault,  falling  on 
the  rider.  There  were  instances  in  which,  after  all  of  the 
ordinary  devices  had  failed  him,  the  broncho  would  lie  down 
and  wallow.  This  usually  prevailed  to  get  the  rider  off,  but 
there  have  been  cases  known  where  the  rider  stayed  on  him 
even  after  he  lay  down,  hung  to  him  and  got  up  with  him. 
There  were  some  riders  who  were  expert  enough  to  roll  a 
cigarette,  light  it  and  smoke  it  while  the  broncho  was  pitch- 
ing. These  were  extraordinary  men,  and  none  of  our  bunch 
ever  attempted  such  exhibitions  of  skill  while  the  fun  was 
going  on.  We  took  it  all  plain  and  straight  and  were  per- 
fectly well  satisfied  to  retain  our  place  in  the  saddle  while 
the  broncho  was  doing  his  best  to  dislodge  us. 

The  worst  trouble  about  some  of  these  bronchos  was  that 
they  wouldn't  stay  *'  busted."  After  they  had  had  their  way 
the  first  time  and  been  finally  tired  out  and  subdued,  the 
average  man,  if  he  were  uninitiated,  would  suppose  that  the 
job  was  done.  The  exact  reverse  was  true.  Next  morning 
when  the  broncho  buster  mounted  him  again,  he  had  to  go 
through  with  it  all  just  as  he  did  the  day  before,  with  some 
new  variations.  The  broncho  learned,  as  well  as  the  rider, 
and  there  were  samples  of  these  wild  Mexican  horses  that 
never  were  permanently  "  busted."  They  would  have  to  be 
broken  again  each  spring  or  each  time  they  got  in  good  con- 
dition. They  were  what  would  be  called  in  ecclesiastical 
circles,  backsliders.  They  would  become  perfectly  gentle 
for  weeks  and  as  docile  as  kittens,  but  you  leave  them  out 


A  Broncho,  and  His  Way  With  a  Tender-Foot. 


"BUSTING  A  BRONCHO"  69 

on  the  grass  for  a  month  or  two  and  saddle  them  up  for  a 
tranquil  ride  and  unless  you  were  "  on  your  P's  and  Q's," 
you  would  be  landed  out  somewhere  in  the  middle  of  the 
road  on  your  head,  while  the  broncho  would  go  scampering 
off  to  the  herd  again  with  your  saddle  and  bridle  on. 

My  father  owned  a  mule  that  was  of  this  type.  Now,  I 
do  not  want  to  tax  your  credulity  in  this  narrative,  so  I  will 
confess  just  here  that  I  never  tried  to  bust  a  broncho  mule. 
The  mules  were  the  most  diabolical  buckers  or  pitchers  in 
the  whole  range  of  animal  life,  and  this  particular  mule, 
whose  name  was  Fox,  never  was  finally  broken.  One  of 
the  last  things  he  did  to  me  after  I  became  his  plow-boy  boss 
was  to  pitch  me  off  one  day  at  noon  when,  after  a  hard 
morning's  plowing,  I  mounted  him  bareback  to  ride  to  the 
house.  I  have  a  notion  that  somewhere  in  the  seat  of  my 
trousers  I  must  have  acquired  a  cockle-bur.  At  any  rate, 
old  Fox  lifted  me  off  as  nicely  as  it  could  have  been  done  if 
I  had  ordered  it.  When  I  said  that  I  could  ride  anything 
that  ever  wore  hair  and  would  stand  up,  I  meant  I  could  do 
this  when  I  had  my  prerequisites  all  well  in  order. 

This  old  Fox  mule  was  one  of  the  best  of  saddle  horses. 
My  father  used  him  much  in  his  practice.  He  was  always 
available,  was  absolutely  tireless,  was  quick  in  movement, 
could  fox-trot  six  miles  an  hour  and  was  one  of  the  handiest 
animals  my  father  ever  owned. 

I  came  to  acquire  him  as  my  plow-horse  on  this  wise: 
When  I  was  a  small  boy,  my  father  put  me  to  plowing  an- 
other mule  whose  original  name  had  been  Lucy,  but  we  ab- 
breviated it  and  called  her  "  Loose."  She  was  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  the  meanest  animal  I  ever  knew.  She  was 
malignant  in  temper,  lazy  in  movement,  indifferent  in  her 
affections  and  a  hardened  pachyderm  when  it  came  to  re- 
ceiving punishment.  She  cared  no  more  for  a  whip  or  a 
goad  than  she  did  for  the  buzzing  of  a  half -grown  fly.  You 
could  whip  her  with  the  plow  lines  all  day  long  or  with  a 


70         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

whip  to  make  her  go,  and  she  wouldn't  go,  nor  would  she 
accelerate  her  movements  on  any  account  or  under  any  con- 
ditions. When  you  would  tell  her  to  "  Whoa,"  she  would 
go  on,  and  when  you  would  tell  her  to  go  on,  she  would 
"  Whoa."  I  fought  with  this  mule  all  the  time.  She  was 
exactly  antipodal  to  all  of  my  predilections.  I  was  nervous, 
wanted  to  drive  ahead,  was  anxious  to  accomplish  some- 
thing, and  this  mule  was  exactly  the  opposite.  She  was 
what  would  now  be  called  in  politics  a  reactionary.  In  re- 
ligion she  would  have  been  called  a  two-seed  Hardshell  Bap- 
tist. In  society  she  would  have  been  called  a  miser.  If 
there  is  anything  in  the  Pythagorean  theory,  this  mule  in  her 
former  state  had  been  a  devil.  It  soon  became  impossible 
for  me  to  deal  with  her  at  all.  My  brother,  who  was  a  very 
kind  and  patient  lad,  inherited  her,  and  even  to  this  day  I 
look  back  upon  his  acquisition  with  the  most  fraternal  sym- 
pathy. My  father  suggested  to  us  that  we  trade  mules,  so 
I  was  given  old  Fox  and  my  brother  was  given  old  "  Loose  " 
to  plow. 

My  brother  was  in  all  respects  the  best  boy  I  ever  knew. 
He  was  absolutely  truthful,  honest,  industrious  and  dependa- 
ble. He  was  sober,  steady  and  temperate  in  all  things.  He 
was  four  years  my  senior,  and  to  his  kind  and  loving  guidance 
as  a  boy,  I  owe  much  of  what  I  am.  I  was  quick,  hasty,  im- 
petuous, restless  and  mercurial.  He  always  held  me  back  and 
taught  me  to  be  patient  and  even  temperate.  With  sadness 
I  confess  that  I  came  to  be  profane,  but  he  never  did.  The 
only  time  I  ever  heard  him  swear  was  concerning  this  mule. 
One  day  when  he  had  come  within  about  ten  feet  of  the  end 
of  the  row,  old  "  Loose  "  stopped  and  would  not  go  to  the 
end  of  the  row.  This  was  one  of  her  pet  stunts.  My  brother 
became  furious.  He  lost  his  temper  and  began  to  berate 
her  frightfully  to  make  her  finish  the  row.  All  at  once  she 
took  a  plunge,  ran  to  the  end  of  the  row,  and  (I  know  it  is 
hard  for  you  to  believe  it)  she  jumped  the  fence!    There- 


"BUSTING  A  BRONCHO"  71 

she  hung  with  the  plow  on  one  side  of  the  fence,  and  my 
brother  clinging  to  the  plow  handles,  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  fence.  It  was  then  that  my  brother  swore.  Of  course 
I  could  not  print  his  language  in  this  biography.  It  would 
not  be  proper.  I  am  by  that  like  Artemus  Ward  was.  He 
said  once  when  he  was  walking  down  the  street  he  heard  a 
man  singing,  "  Come  Where  My  Love  Lies  Dreaming."  He 
said :  "  I  did  not  go.  I  did  not  think  it  would  be  correct." 
I  am  sure  it  would  not  be  correct  to  print  my  brother's 
words,  but  I  did  not  then  have  it  in  my  heart,  and  I  haven't 
it  in  my  heart  now,  to  censure  him  overmuch  for  this  out- 
burst of  temper. 


T 


VIII 

AN  OLD-TIME  COUNTRY  DANCE 

^  ^  t  I  AHERE  is  going  to    be  a  party  at  George  Gallo- 
way's tomorrow  night ! " 

This  is  what  my  sister  Carrie  said  to  me  on  a 
November  evening  in  1875,  as  I  came  in  from  a  hard  day's 
work.  The  work  in  which  I  had  been  engaged  was  what 
my  father  always  called  "  righting  up  "  the  fences.  Every 
winter  it  was  necessary  to  fill  up  the  low  places  in  the  old- 
fashioned  South  Texas  rail  fences,  and  in  some  instances, 
a  new  "  worm  "  had  to  be  laid  and  an  entirely  new  fence 
built. 

A  party  at  George  Galloway's  was  no  unusual  occurrence, 
for  parties  were  had  there  frequently,  and  invariably  meant 
a  dance.  Not  the  "  turkey  trot,"  "  tango,"  or  "  bunny  hug  " 
of  the  cities ;  not  the  "  german,"  but  an  old-fashioned  coun- 
try dance,  where  we  "  balanced  all  "  and  "  swung  corners  " 
from  the  time  that  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun  kissed  the 
western  hills  until  the  sheen  of  his  rising  splendor  pro- 
claimed the  golden  dawn. 

There  were  four  of  us.  I  was  the  youngest,  and  a  boy. 
My  two  sisters  had  really  grown  to  be  young  ladies,  while 
my  brother,  four  years  my  senior,  was  proudly  boasting  of  a 
small  mustache  that  struggled  for  leeway  on  his  upper  lip. 

"  Tomorrow  night "  was  Thursday  night,  and,  like  all  to- 
morrow nights,  it  soon  came  and  found  Carrie  and  me  dyked 
out  in  our  best  clothes,  cantering  on  our  ponies  on  the  way  to 
George  Galloway's. 

It  was  a  mile  and  a  half  across  the  country.     I  had  my 

72 


Mrs.  Amanda  J.  (Cranfill)  Williams. 


A  COUNTRY  DANCE  73 

six-shooter,  which,  by  the  way,  was  a  cap  and  ball  Colt, 
navy  size,  and  attached  to  that  was  a  dangerous  looking  and 
shining  dirk,  safely  ensconsed  in  its  leather  scabbard.  These 
were  articles  of  furniture,  though  forbidden  by  law,  that 
were  much  in  vogue  in  those  days,  and  though,  at  that  time, 
I  was  scarcely  turned  seventeen,  I  could  put  three  balls  into 
a  tree  as  I  galloped  by  it,  and  was  counted  a  good  shot. 

Tuck  Simms  played  the  fiddle  that  night. 

It  would  amuse  you  if  I  could  describe  Tuck  just  as  he 
looked.  He  was  a  small  man,  weighing  about  a  hundred 
and  ten  pounds,  with  an  eye  keen  as  the  eagle's,  and  when 
I  say  with  an  eye,  I  mean  AN  eye,  because  he  had  only  one, 
his  other  having  been  destroyed  in  some  duel,  concerning 
which  he  was  very  reticent. 

He  played  "  over  the  bass."  If  you  do  not  know  what 
that  means,  I  will  tell  you.  Being  a  left-handed  man,  he 
used  the  fiddle-bow  in  his  left  hand  and  held  the  instrument 
in  his  right.  Playing  in  this  way,  he  touched  the  "  G  "  string 
first.    We  always  called  this  playing  "  over  the  bass." 

"How  glad  we  are  to  see  you!"  said  Cousin  Sallie,  as 
we  entered  the  gate. 

Cousin  Sallie  was  George  Galloway's  wife,  and  was  rather 
a  low  and  "  chunky  "  woman,  who  wore  a  luxuriant  assort- 
ment of  freckles  and  a  kindly  expression  on  her  face. 

"  So  are  we  glad  to  see  you,"  I  said  in  reply.  "  Who  is 
that  strange  young  lady  ?  " 

I  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  new,  but  beautiful  face  as  we 
entered  the  house. 

"  Oh !  "  responded  Cousin  Sallie,  "  that  is  Ebbie  Mayo's 
cousin,  Sallie  Yarbrough." 

"  And  where  did  she  come  from  ?  "  asked  Carrie. 

"  She  lives  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  Colorado  on 
Alum  Creek." 

Fresh  arrivals  put  in  their  appearance  at  this  point,  and 


74         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

thus  the  conversation  ended.  The  rude  log  house  was  fast 
filling  up. 

A  thumping  of  fiddle  strings  and  a  general  stir  in  the 
large  square  room,  which  served  as  dancing  hall,  bed  room, 
parlor  and  reception  room,  warned  us  that  a  "  set "  was 
about  to  be  made  up.  Let  it  never  be  supposed  that  there 
were  any  visible  evidences  which  would  indicate  that  this 
room  was  a  bed  room  or  ever  had  been.  To  the  practiced 
eye,  a  number  of  large,  inch  and  a  quarter,  auger  holes  on 
two  separate  sides  of  the  house,  would  show  that  bedsteads 
had  been  there,  because  it  was  a  custom,  not  to  be  grinned 
at,  either,  to  fashion  bedsteads  by  driving  timbers  into  the 
wall  and  placing  supports  under  them,  and  in  that  way 
crudely  constructing  places  to  sleep.  They  were  not  exactly 
folding  beds,  though  on  this  evening,  which,  to  me,  was  to 
be  one  of  the  most  eventful  of  my  life,  the  beds  were  folded, 
all  in  a  pile,  out  in  the  yard,  under  the  spreading  branches  of 
a  kingly  oak  tree,  in  order  to  make  room  for  the  gay  young- 
sters who  were  giving  life  and  inspiration  to  the  scene. 

And  such  girls  as  these  were  who  assembled  at  George 
Galloway's  that  night !  Typical  country  lasses  whose  cheeks 
were  painted  by  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun,  and  whose 
hearts,  all  unused  to  the  arts  and  wiles  of  fashion,  were  as 
pure  as  was  the  heart  of  that  first  maiden  who  walked  in 
Eden  and  beheld  her  reflected  beauty  in  the  waters  of  the 
Euphrates.  It  would  not  have  been  hard  to  imagine  old 
John  Milton  describing  another  scene  like  that  scene  by 
Eden's  placid  brook,  when  the  first  woman,  even  to  herself 
unknown,  saw  in  the  laughing  water  her  own  reflected 
charms.  If  Milton  had  been  present  that  November  night 
and  had  had  his  eyesight  brought  back  to  him,  and  had  not 
been  inspired  to  write  another  epic,  I,  for  one,  should  have 
gone  back  on  John. 

My  sister  Carrie  and  I  were  in  the  first  set.  We  always 
were.     She  was  distinguished  as  a  dancer  and  so  was  I, 


A  COUNTRY  DANCE  75 

while  our  less  fortunate  brother  and  sister,  whose  feet  did 
not  move  with  such  Terpsichorean  agility,  always  had  to 
take  their  chances. 

And  who  was  my  partner  for  the  first  set?  I  am  sure 
you  want  to  know.  It  was  none  other  than  Sallie  Gallo- 
way, my  Cousin  George's  wife.  Did  I  tell  you  she  could 
dance?  If  I  did  not  tell  you,  hear  it  now.  She  could.  She 
did  not  look  it,  not  at  all,  but  she  could  hold  her  own  with 
the  best  of  them,  and  although  there  were  freckles  on  her 
face,  there  were  no  cares  in  her  heart,  for  she  was  as  happy 
and  as  lithesome  as  the  little  baby  who  cooed  on  Cousin 
George's  knee  as  its  mother  and  I  "  swung  corners  "  and 
"  balanced  all." 

The  new  girl  was  on  the  floor  during  the  first  set.  She 
was  at  my  immediate  left,  and  whenever  we  "  swung  cor- 
ners," I  had  to  swing  her.  I  wondered  if  she  was  engaged 
and  how  long  she  was  going  to  stay,  and  oh !  I  cannot  tell 
you  how  many  things  I  did  wonder  about  her  as  we  danced 
that  first  set. 

So  during  the  intervals,  while  others  were  dancing,  and 
we  were  keeping  our  places,  I  would  ask  questions  about 
her.  She  was  dancing  with  Sam  Galloway,  who  afterwards 
married  Ebbie  Mayo's  sister.  Sam  was  six  feet  four  in  his 
stocking  feet,  but  he  was  not  so  tall  as  his  brother  Caleb, 
who  was  six  feet  seven. 

If  you  will  pardon  a  divergence,  I  will  say  that  better  boys 
than  these  never  lived,  although  they  were  spending  their 
lives  then  as  they  are  spending  them  now,  tilling  the  soil  in 
their  homely  fashion  in  the  backwoods  where  I,  when  a  boy, 
shared  their  joys  and  sorrows. 

"  And  her  name  is  Sallie  Yarbrough  ?  "  I  said  to  Cousin 
Sallie. 

I  had  never  thought  about  it  before,  but  it  seemed  to  me 
then  that  Sallie  was  an  uncommonly  pretty  name.  It  cer- 
tainly must  have  been  a  pretty  name,  or  else  it  could  not  have 


76         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

been  so  gracefully  worn  by  such  a  queenly  girl  as  the  one 
who  stood  before  us. 

Would  you  like  to  see  her?  I  will  draw  her  picture  for 
you.  She  was  a  typical  blonde  with  a  form  as  perfect  as 
that  of  Powers'  Greek  slave,  and  with  movements  as  graceful 
as  any  queen.  Her  eyes  were  as  blue  as  the  azure  dome  and 
as  bright  as  the  silver  light  of  the  shining  stars.  She  wore 
her  hair  loose,  which  was  a  common  fashion,  and  her  bright 
ringlets  of  gold,  as  they  fell  on  her  beautifully  rounded 
shoulders,  added  a  charm  and  grace  to  her  perfect  face  and 
figure  absolutely  indescribable. 

"  Mr.  Cranfill,  Miss  Yarbrough  " — that  is  the  way  Cousin 
Sallie  introduced  us. 

I  felt  a  queer  something  creeping  up  into  my  throat  as  I 
asked : 

"  Miss  Yarbrough,  have  you  a  partner  for  the  next 
dance  ?  " 

"  No,  indeed,"  she  replied. 

"  Will  you  dance  with  me  ?  " 

"  With  pleasure." 

With  these  words,  we  took  our  places  on  the  floor  and 
waited  the  pleasure  of  the  others  who  were  to  engage  in  the 
set. 

Tuck  Simms  tuned  his  fiddle.  I  seem  to  hear  him  thump- 
ing the  strings  now  as  I  write,  and  I  seem  to  see  him  sitting 
in  the  corner  of  George  Galloway's  house,  with  his  one  keen 
black  eye  looking  down  the  finger  board  of  his  fiddle  as  he 
adjusted  the  keys  so  as  to  get  the  instrument  in  tune. 

"  Salute  your  partners !  " 

"  Balance  all !  " 

"  Swing  corners,  and  all  promenade !  " 

Tuck  Simms  could  play  and  prompt  both  at  the  same 
time,  although  he  was  not  so  much  of  an  adept  in  prompting 
as  his  uncle.  Grant  Simms,  who  did  not  play  "  over  the  bass  " 
and  who  was  far  superior  to  Tuck  as  a  fiddler. 


A  COUNTRY  DANCE  77 

There  were  no  violinists  in  those  precincts.  If  any  of 
those  old-fashioned  country  folk  had  ever  seen  a  violinist 
or  had  ever  seen  violin  tunes  set  to  music,  they  would  have 
"  folded  their  tents  like  the  Arabs,"  and  silently  sought  *he 
shades  of  the  distant  west  in  which  to  hide  their  disgust. 

But  there  were  fiddlers,  and  such  fiddlers  they  were!  I 
can  hear  the  lively  notes  of  "  Fine  Times  at  Our  House," 
"  Cotton-Eyed  Joe,"  "  Mollie  Put  the  Kettle  On,"  and 
"  Grey  Eagle,"  as  I  write.  Homiely  old  times  were  those 
times  that,  like  the  buffalo  and  the  Comanche  warrior,  sleep 
in  the  mouldering  ruins  of  a  vanished  age. 

"  And  how  long  are  you  going  to  stay  up  on  the  prairie  ?  " 
These  were  the  very  first  words  I  ever  said  to  her. 

"  Two  or  three  weeks,"  she  coyly  replied. 

"  And  will  you  spend  all  of  your  time  at  Ebbie  Mayo's  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  I  will,"  she  said. 

We  were  again  balancing  to  the  right,  and  it  was  ''  right 
hand  across "  and  "  left  hand  back,"  and  "  four  hands 
around,"  and  ''ladies,  dosee  "  (this  word  an  abbreviation  of 
dos-a-dos),  and  "gents  counter  dance,"  and  so  on  through 
the  set. 

I  really  hoped  that  it  would  never  end,  but  it  did  end,  as 
all  our  earthly  joys  must  end,  and  all  too  soon,  and  as  Tuck 
said  in  his  cheery  tones,  "  Promenade  to  your  seats,"  I  felt 
the  lump  come  up  into  my  throat  again  as  I  said,  "  Miss  Sal- 
lie,  will  you  dance  with  me  again  the  next  set  ?  " 

She  said  "  Yes  "  as  charmingly  as  ever  princess  consented 
to  be  the  partner  of  courtier. 

I  did  not  realize  it  then,  but  I  did  afterwards,  that  in  that 
brief  interval  of  time,  I  had  ceased  to  be  a  boy  and  had  be- 
come a  man. 

I  had  passed  the  line  of  demarcation  between  boyhood 
and  manhood  in  an  instant,  and  oh !  "how  sad  it  is  that  be- 
tween them  at  that  moment  there  was  a  great  gulf  fixed, 


78         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

which,  like  the  gulf  between  Dives  and  Abraham,  no  bridge 
could  ever  span. 

I  was  in  love. 

And  do  you  smile  as  I  say  it  ?  It  was  no  laughing  matter 
to  me,  dear  reader,  and  in  all  the  years  that  have  passed 
since  then,  I  have  never  found  it  in  my  heart  to  laugh  at 
the  green,  gawky  and  inexperienced  country  boy,  with  hair 
bobbed  off,  and  all  unused  to  the  great  world  and  its  devious 
ways,  who,  on  that  autumn  night,  gave  his  heart,  his  whole 
heart,  to  that  comely  country  girl. 

The  next  set  was  nearing  to  a  close.  As  we  were  prome- 
nading past  the  fiddler  on  our  last  round,  he  said  to  me : 

"  Britton,  I  want  to  see  you  when  this  set  is  over." 

I  always  loved  Tuck  Simms,  although  my  father  objected 
very  much  to  my  association  with  him.  He  kept  company 
with  the  toughest  gang  of  outlaws  that  ever  infested  that 
portion  of  Texas,  but  I  loved  him  nevertheless. 

"  And  what  do  you  want  ?"  I  said  to  Tuck  after  the  set 
was  over,  as  I  hastened  to  his  side. 

"  Who  is  that  girl  you  have  been  dancing  with  ?  " 

I  felt  that  same  trouble  in  my  throat  as  I  said,  "  Why,  it 
is  Ebbie  Mayo's  cousin." 

"What  is  her  name?" 

"  Her  name — is — it  is  Sallie — Sallie  Yarbrough,"  I  said, 
tremulously. 

"  Introduce  me  to  her  and  let  me  dance  a  set  with  her, 
while  you  play  the  fiddle." 

It  was  not  an  unreasonable  request,  and  I  replied,  "Of 
course,  I  will." 

This  was  no  sooner  said  than  done.  He  rose  and  we 
walked  across  the  room  to  where  she  sat  engaged  in  a  con- 
versation with  George  Fry,  for  she  was  an  attractive  girl, 
and  many  other  hearts  than  mine  were  doubtless  beating 
faster  on  account  of  her  presence  that  night.  The  introduc- 
tion being  over,  I  took  up  Tuck's  fiddle  and  began  to  play. 


Mrs.  Carrie  (Cranfill)  Snead. 


A  COUNTRY  DANCE  79 

The  set  seemed  awfully  long.  I  sawed  and  sawed  on  that 
old  fiddle  and  cannot  tell  whether  I  played  a  tune  or  not, 
although  I  was  capable  of  playing  the  old  tunes  so  much 
loved  by  the  young  people  of  that  time. 

But  it  was  over  at  last,  as  all  unpleasant  as  well  as  pleasant 
things  will  be  over  bye  and  bye.  I  gladly  yielded  the  fiddle 
to  its  owner  and  at  once  sought  the  company  of  the  fair 
damsel,  whose  gentle  face  haunted  me  then  as  surely  as  it 
did  in  the  years  that  followed. 

And  so  we  went  on  until  the  hours  of  morning  came  and 
the  crowing  of  the  cocks  warned  us  of  the  approach  of 
dawn. 

I  really  do  not  remember  how  many  sets  I  danced  with 
Sallie,  but  I  know  that  when  the  party  broke  up,  and  it  was 
time  to  go  home,  I  was  her  escort,  and  that  my  sister  Car- 
rie, in  the  goodness  of  her  heart,  waited  at  George  Gallo- 
way's until  I  saw  my  new  sweetheart  home  and  hurried  back 
again. 

I  left  her  at  the  gate,  but  before  leaving  her  had  made  an 
engagement  to  call  on  her  the  succeeding  Sunday. 

Yes,  I  was  in  love,  and  I  knew  it. 

I  did  not  dare  speak  about  it  to  a  soul.  But  on  the  journey 
home,  as  the  stars  kept  us  company,  I  thought  of  the  bright 
and  happy,  queenly  face  of  the  matchless  beauty  to  whom, 
without  thought  of  consequences,  I  had  unreservedly  given 
my  whole  heart.  Did  I  say  it  was  Thursday  night?  Well, 
it  seemed  ten  years  till  Sunday. 


IX 
A  BOY  IN  LOVE 

FENCE  BUILDING  is  a  slow  business  at  best.  I 
never  could  lay  a  straight  fence  worm,  but  I  do  not 
think  any  was  ever  so  crooked  as  the  one  I  laid 
after  that  Thursday  night  at  George  Galloway's.  Not  only 
were  the  fence  worms  crooked,  but  everything  I  did  was 
crooked  but  the  one  thing  of  loving  that  girl. 

I  slept  very  little.  There  was  not  a  minute  in  my  waking 
hours  that  my  mind  was  not  on  Sallie  Yarbrough. 

I  hardly  dared  to  go  to  see  her  on  Sunday  morning,  be- 
cause there  was  to  be  preaching  at  the  little  Hardshell  Bap- 
tist church  down  on  the  south  side  of  the  prairie,  and,  as 
this  was  my  father's  and  mother's  church,  and,  as  we  always 
attended  it,  I  felt  obliged  to  go,  and  really  I  hoped  that  Sal- 
lie  might  be  there,  because  Ebbie  Mayo  was  himself  a  Hard- 
shell Baptist,  and  I  thought  that  possibly  the  whole  family 
might  be  there.  Like  many  other  cherished  hopes,  this  hope 
was  vain. 

There  was  more  than  the  usual  supply  of  Hardshell 
preachers  on  hand  that  day,  and  they  all  preached.  My 
father — God  rest  his  soul — was  the  last  one  to  preach  on 
that  eventful  Sunday.  Jim  Baker  preached  the  first  ser- 
mon, which  seemed  four  hours  long.  And  then  his  brother 
Abe  followed  him  in  a  scarcely  shorter  sermon  than  the 
first,  and  then  old  Brother  Ellis,  who,  if  he  had  not  been  a 
Hardshell  preacher,  would  have  been  a  barkeeper,  came  in 
with  an  exhortation  of  great  loudness  and  great  length.  My 
father  closed  the  exercises  with  an  exhortation  that  could 

80 


J.  B.  Cranfill  When  He  Loved  Sallie. 


A  BOY  IN  LOVE  81 

scarcely  have  been  half  an  hour  long,  but  it  seemed  to  me 
thirty  years  instead  of  thirty  minutes. 

I  did  not  go  to  dinner.  I  went  as  straight  to  Ebbie  Mayo's 
as  my  agile  and  faithful  "  Old  Ball "  could  carry  me. 

I  forgot  that  I  had  heard  four  Hardshell  sermons,  and  I 
forgot  that  I  had  had  nothing  to  eat  since  breakfast,  and 
could  eat  but  little  then,  and  I  forgot  tthat  my  horse  was  also 
hungry,  and  I  forgot  the  whole  world,  which,  utterly  ob- 
livious of  the  fact  of  my  forget  fulness  of  it,  went  on  in  its 
remorseless  rush. 

I  forgot  all  else  but  Sallie,  and  when  I  reached  the  gate 
and  dropped  the  reins  of  niy  bridle  over  the  corner  of  the 
"  staked  and  ridered  "  fence,  and  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
girl  I  loved,  I  was  as  happy  as  was  the  first  man  when  he 
looked  upon  the  virgin  loveliness  of  the  first  woman  as  her 
brow  was  kissed  by  the  early  dawn. 

I  did  not  need  to  knock  at  the  door,  because  before  I  could 
get  in  knocking  distance,  two  huge  dogs  heralded  my  ap- 
proach in  unmistakable  language. 

I  do  not  think  I  had  ever  known  anyone  to  knock  at  a 
door  up  to  that  period  of  my  life.  The  way  we  made  our 
approach  known  was  to  give  a  loud  "  hello." 

Every  farm  had  its  dogs.  The  poorer  a  man  was,  the 
more  dogs  he  had.  Some  of  these,  and  this  was  especially 
true  of  my  dog,  were  like  the  immortal  "  Bull "  of  Dr.  Eg- 
gleston's  Hoosier  Schoolmaster. 

Ebbie  Mayo  had  just  such  a  dog.  He  combined  great 
strength  and  comelineess  of  form  with  the  ugliest  physiog- 
nomy that  can  be  im/agined.  He  was  of  the  same  family  as 
"  Bull,"  and  when  he  caught  hold,  "  Heaven  and  earth 
couldn't  make  him  let  go."  This  fact  necessarily  impeded 
my  approach,  until  Ebbie  Mayo,  who  was  a  man  of  perhaps 
fifty,  with  a  little  patch  of  beard  on  his  chin,  and  with  slightly 
stooping  shoulders,  came  to  the  door,  quieted  the  dogs. 


82         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

You  may  be  interested  enough  to  know  something  of  my 
own  dog,  which,  though  now  keeping  a  safe  distance,  had 
been  to  meeting  with  me  that  day  and  followed  me,  keeping 
pace  with  "  Old  Ball  "  as  I  journeyed  toward  the  one  I  loved. 
His  name  was  "  Puppy."  That  was  not  a  lovely  name,  even 
for  a  dog,  but  I  called  him  that  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  him. 
He  was  as  thin  as  a  razor-back  hog  the  day  he,  as  a  for- 
lorn and  friendless  stray  dog,  followed  me  home.  I  tried 
once  to  drive  him  off,  but  he  switched  his  tail  so  humbly, 
and  looked  at  me  so  mournfully  out  of  his  large,  clear  eyes, 
that  I  took  him  home.  That  was  five  years  ago,  when  I  was 
only  twelve  years  old,  and  from  that  day  till  this  Sunday 
morning  he  had  been  my  inseparable  companion.  He  was 
little  more  than  a  puppy  when  we  took  up  together,  and  that 
became  his  name.  Never  in  all  the  annals  of  turf,  field 
and  farm  was  there  a  braver,  more  faithful  or  more  judi- 
cious dog. 

" '  Light  and  look  at  your  saddle,"  was  Ebbie  Mayors 
kindly  exclamation,  forgetting  that  I  was  already  on  the 
ground  and  ready  to  spring  over  the  fence  into  the  yard. 

I  grasped  his  hand  warmly,  hastened  into  the  house,  and 
was  quickly  ushered  into  the  ''  parlor,"  as  I  should  call  it 
now,  but  the  fact  was  that  Ebbie  Mayo's  house  had  no  par- 
lor, and  I  was  invited  to  take  a  seat  in  the  family  room,  from 
which,  when  I  was  duly  seated  and  Miss  Yarbrough  was 
seated  near  me,  the  family  quietly  withdrew. 

"  And  how  do  you  feel  since  the  dance  Thursday  night  ?  " 
was  my  first  sentence. 
"  Oh,  splendid,"  she  said. 
"  And  do  you  like  Hallmark's  Prairie  ?  "  I  inquired. 

We  always  called  that  neighborhood  Hallmark's  Prairie, 
even  after  Jeddo  was  established,  and  it  is  called  Hallmark's 
Prairie  until  this  day.  It  was  named  for  an  old  citizen  of 
the  community,  John  Hallmark,  whose  son  "  Mat "  was  the 


A  BOY  IN  LOVE  83 

first  boy  that  ever  gave  me  a  licking  when  I  v^as  "almost 
new." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I  have  been  very  much  pleased  with 
the  people  and  have  made  many  pleasant  acquaintances." 

"  I  am  sure,"  I  replied  modestly  and  somewhat  timidly, 
"  that  you  have  made  a  good  impression  on  the  people  here, 
for  I  have  heard  nothing  but  the  highest  praise  of  you." 

"  Indeed  ?  "  she  inquired,  "  and  I  wonder  why  anyone 
should  praise  me?" 

"  And  I  wonder  why  every  one  should  not  praise  you ! '' 

She  blUvShed  innocently  and  naturally,  and  I  continued, 
"  The  prairie  has  not  been  favored  with  such  a  charming 
visitor  within  my  knowledge." 

And  then  I  stopped  and  my  heart  fluttered  as  I  wondered 
if  I  had  not  said  too  much. 

Her  kindly  eyes  met  mine  as  she  modestly  replied,  "  I  am 
sure  that  I  am  not  worthy  to  have  such  things  said  about  me." 

And  then  I  looked  out  at  the  door  to  see  how  my  horse 
was  getting  on,  and  turning  toward  her  again,  remarked,  "  It 
is  a  beautiful  fall,  isn't  it?  " 

Some  people,  even  in  that  remote  country,  said  autumn, 
but  I  applied  the  plainer  term  and  called  it  fall. 

"  It  is  indeed,  "  she  replied.  "  Are  there  any  hickory  nuts 
in  this  part  of  the  country?" 

I  assured  her  there  were  and  that  I  wished  it  were  not 
Sunday  so  that  we  might  go  nutting. 

"  Can  you  climb  and  thrash  the  trees  ?  "  she  asked. 

Could  I  climb  and  thrash  the  trees  ?  I  could  have  climbed 
to  the  top  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  if  she  had  been  looking  on, 
and  could  not  only  have  thrashed  for  her  all  the  hickory- 
nut  trees  in  Christendom,  but  could  have  thrashed  the  whole 
Roman  Empire  in  its  palmiest  days. 

"  How  is  the  pecan  crop  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  Splendid,  and  we  have  been  pecan  hunting  two  or  three 


84         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

different  days,  as  you  will  see  from  the  stains  on  my  fingers 
now." 

Yes,  I  did  it.  She  reached  her  shapely  hand  slightly 
toward  me,  and  I  timidly  reached  mine  out  and  looked  at  the 
stains  on  her  fingers,  and  I  held  her  hand  in  mine  for  the 
first  time,  and  Bob  Burdette  tells  the  truth  in  his  lecture  on 
"  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache,"  when  he  says  that  a 
man  can  hold  her  hand  just  as  well  the  first  time  as  he  can 
after  practicing  it  a  thousand  years. 

It  was  her  left  hand  that  she  extended  to  me  and  I  uncon- 
sciously took  her  extended  fingers  in  my  left  hand. 

"  Are  you  left-handed  ?  " 

We  each  asked  the  question  of  the  other  in  the  same 
breath,  and  both  answered  "  Yes." 

Another  link  in  the  chain  of  destiny ! 

She  did  not  let  her  hand  linger  there  and  I  did  not  try  to 
detain  it,  but  that  touch  had  in  it  a  swell  and  flush  of  mag- 
netism, that  tingled  in  my  fingers  and  rushed  madly  to  my 
heart. 

There  are  some  who  do  not  believe  in  magnetism,  but 
they  never  saw  Sallie. 

I  have  seen  ignorant  negroes  hobble  around  among  a  mass 
of  trolley  wires,  all  unconscious  of  the  terrible  electric  forces 
that  hedged  them  about,  and  I  have  seen  listless  dolts,  both 
men  and  women,  passing  through  the  world,  surrounded  by 
storms  of  electric  power  on  every  hand,  and  all  unconscious 
of  the  hidden  forces  that  linger  in  the  human  heart. 

Oh !  that  thrill — tremulous,  entrancing,  inexplicable,  dan- 
gerous !  I  had  stumbled  on  this  discovery  and  did  not  as  yet 
know  what  it  was  any  more  than  Franklin  knew  what  the 
lightning  was  when  he  caught  a  few  of  its  kindling  sparks 
in  his  handkerchief.  She  felt  it  too.  I  did  not  know  it  then, 
but  I  know  it  now.  There  was  a  mantling  of  blood  to  her 
cheeks,  and  there  was  a  flash  in  her  eye  that  I  could  not 
explain  then,  but  I  knew  it  later  all  too  well. 


A  BOY  IN  LOVE  85 

"  And  how  long  are  you  going  to  spend  on  the  Prairie  ?  " 
I  queried. 

"  Until  next  week,"  she  said. 

"  And  why  not  spend  Christmas  with  us  ?  " 

"  I  must  be  at  home  with  Pa  and  Ma  and  my  little 
brother." 

If  I  were  writing  a  fictitious  romance,  I  would  say  that  she 
referred  to  her  father  and  mother  as  "  Papa  "  and  "  Mama," 
but  she  didn't.  It  was  plain  Pa  and  Ma,  as  was  the  custom 
in  the  higher  walks  of  country  life.  In  the  lower  strata, 
parents  were  called  by  the  cognomens  of  "  Pap "  and 
"  Mam." 

"  And  where  will  you  spend  Christmas  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  I  have  never  spent  Christmas  anywhere  but  here  around 
home,"  and  then  there  was  a  pause. 

"  What  do  you  do  at  Christmas  time  ? "  was  my  next 
question. 

"  Oh,  we  have  dances  and  candy  pullings,  and  sometimes 
the  boys  get  up  a  *  chivaree,'  if  there  are  any  new  married 
couples,  and  we  pass  the  time  away  in  great  glee.  There  is 
to  be  a  party  at  Smithville  on  this  side  the  river  the  night 
before  Christmas,  and  I  have  promised  already  to  attend 
that." 

As  Smithville  was  only  about  fifteen  miles  from  Hall- 
mark's Prairie,  and  as  I  had  often  visited  it  in  hunting  cattle, 
I  knew  full  well  where  the  house  was  that  she  designated. 
The  party  was  to  be  at  Aaron  Burleson's,  who  was  one  of 
the  most  expert  fiddlers  and  whiskey  drinkers  in  Bastrop 
County.  He  was  afterwards  waylaid  and  killed,  but  be- 
fore he  "  bit  the  dust,"  he  had  killed  his  eight  or  ten  men. 

"  Have  you  never  been  to  a  party  near  Smithville  ?  "  she 
asked. 

I  confessed  that  I  never  had,  but  that  I  had  often  hunted 
cattle  in  that  section  of  the  country. 

"  I  think  I  should  like  to  go  to  this  one,"  I  said. 


86         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

"  Well,  come  by  all  means,"  and  what  a  pleasant  invitation 
that  was ! 

"  If  I  come,  may  I  go  home  with  you  ?  "  I  asked. 

And  really,  my  dear  reader,  this  was  a  brave  thing  to  do, 
but  I  write  it  down  here  for  the  good  of  any  faint-hearted 
boy  who  may  read  these  pages,  that  the  way  to  win  the  heart 
of  the  woman  you  love  is  not  to  stand  on  the  order  of  paying 
her  the  kingliest  attentions  of  which  you  are  capable.  If 
faint  heart  never  won  fair  lady,  faint  heart  never  won  any 
lady  at  all.  Sometimes  faint  heart  is  won  by  some  buxom 
maiden  or  last  summer's  widow,  but,  when  you  are  in  love, 
make  bold  to  advance,  whether  you  know  the  countersign 
or  not,  and  lay  siege  to  the  object  of  your  affections  mightily. 
A  woman  who  is  worth  winning  despises  a  halting,  sham- 
bling, stammering,  faint-hearted  man,  and  would  rather  wipe 
her  feet  on  him  than  to  do  anything  else  with  him. 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  have  you  go  to  our  house  and  spend 
Christmas  Day  with  us,"  she  replied. 

I  looked  at  her  as  she  gently  turned  her  face  toward  mine, 
and  I  wanted  to  look  at  the  pecan  stains  again,  but  I  did  not 
dare,  so  I  said,  "  It  is  a  bargain.  I  will  be  there  and  go 
home  with  you  and  spend  Christmas  day  at  your  house." 

Never  on  earth  shall  I  forget  it.  I  had  already  counted 
it  up.  Christmas  day  would  be  Saturday  and  the  next  day 
would  be  Sunday,  and  I  knew  that  if  I  spent  Christmas  day, 
I  would  have  to  spend  Sunday,  because  it  would  not  be  polite 
to  go  away  on  Sunday  morning,  much  less  to  leave  there  on 
Saturday  night  for  a  twenty-three-mile  ride,  with  a  dan- 
gerous river  between  me  and  home. 

I  really  did  not  observe  that  it  was  supper  time,  although 
Ebbie  Mayo's  clock  had  been  ticking  right  before  my  eyes, 
and  striking  the  hour,  it  seemed  to  me,  every  five  minutes, 
and  Miss  Meely  Mayo,  his  daughter,  had  tripped  in  and 
lighted  the  lamp,  and  I  heard  dishes  rattling,  and  after  a 
little  time,  Ebbie  Mayo  beamed  in  on  us  and  said,  "  Britton^ 


A  BOY  IN  LOVE  87 

if  you  and  Sallie  don't  come  to  supper,  there  won't  be  any- 
thing left." 

I  had  not  eaten  a  bite  since  breakfast,  as  the  reader  knows, 
but  I  wished  then  that  there  had  never  been  anything  like 
supper  invented.  But  I  went  in,  and,  thanks  to  good  luck,  I 
sat  by  Sallie  at  the  table,  and  once  or  twice  our  elbows 
touched,  and  I  felt  that  same  indescribable  thrill  of  which  I 
have  spoken  before. 

And  after  supper,  what?  Well,  I  stayed  until  late  bed- 
time, which  was  ten  o'clock. 

Bedtime  in  the  country  comes  very  early.  It  was  related 
of  my  father  that  once  upon  a  time  a  neighbor  called  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  found  all  the  family  in  bed. 
That  was  a  malicious  fabrication,  because  I  have  never 
known  all  the  family  to  be  in  bed  before  seven. 

Before  bedtime  came.  Miss  Sallie  had  agreed  to  write  me 
on  her  arrival  home,  and  to  keep  me  informed  as  to  any 
change  in  the  program  concerning  the  party  at  Aaron  Bur- 
leson's. 

But  at  last  good-bye  time  came,  and  good-bye  time  is 
always  the  saddest  time  of  all.  I  grasped  her  willing  hand, 
and  she  returned  my  grasp  with  a  coy  warmth  that  I  remem- 
ber now,  and  I  felt  that  thrill  surging  in  my  heart  again — 
and  was  gone. 

There  were  stars  that  night  that  came  out  and  shed  their 
silver  light  on  me  as  I  galloped  over  hill  and  dale  toward  my 
father's  house,  and  the  stars  seemed  happy  too,  and  the 
autumn  leaves  that  were  still  falling  gave  out  tender  music 
as  the  winds  sent  them  rustling  to  the  ground. 

I  was  happy. 

Never  in  my  life  had  I  been  thus  happy  before. 

I  had  left  the  old  farm,  over  which,  through  many  a  weary 
mile,  between  plow  handles,  I  had  followed  "  Old  Fox,"  and 
I  had  left  the  lowing  herds  of  cattle,  which  I  had  tended 
many  a  day ;  and  I  had  left  the  books  which  I  had  studied 


88         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

faithfully,  and  that  had  been  tied  to  my  saddle  as  I  rode 
through  the  forests  full  many  a  time;  and  I  had  left  the 
little  country  schoolhouse  where  I  had  received  the  crude 
education  that  made  me  what  I  was  and  what  I  am;  and  I 
had  left  everything  on  earth  that  had  prose  in  it,  and  had 
gone  into  the  realm  of  pure,  genuine,  innocent,  primeval 
love,  which,  since  the  days  that  there  was  a  garden  planted 
eastward  in  Eden,  has  thrilled  the  heart  of  city  and  country 
lad  alike,  and  has  fashioned  for  good  or  ill  the  destinies  of 
the  many  generations  that  have  come  and  worked  out  the 
little  story  of  their  lives — have  been  born,  and  lived,  and 
died — and  passed  into  the  shadows  of  the  grave. 

It  was  the  same  old  story  that  has  been  told  over  and 
again  these  many  thousand  times,  and  is  ever  new,  and  is 
ever  fresh,  and  ever  causes  tender  hearts  to  beat  faster,  and 
ever  fires  the  ambition  and  inspires  the  soul  and  elevates 
the  life  of  every  man  and  woman  who  worthily  and  truly 
loves. 

After  arriving  at  home  and  giving  "  Old  Ball "  a  liberal 
feed  of  corn  and  oats,  I  went  to  bed  and  dreamed  that  Sallie 
and  I  had  married  and  had  a  little  country  cottage,  with  the 
vines  growing  about  the  door,  with  our  farm  and  cattle 
around  us,  and  in  our  simple  country  life  were  unspeakably 
happy  in  each  other's  love,  and  journeying  through  life's 
mazes  to  the  better  land. 


X 

A  HARDSHELL  BAPTIST  FOOT-WASHING      . 

MY  FATHER  and  mother  were  members  of  the 
Hardshell  Baptist  Church  that  had  its  habitat  on 
Hallmark's  Prairie.  It  was  made  up  of  most 
excellent  people.  The  Hardshell  Baptists  are  very  like  the 
Missionary  Baptists  in  their  creed,  but  differ  somewhat  in 
the  interpretation  of  their  creed.  They  believe  in  what  they 
call  foot- washing.  They  base  this  belief  on  the  13th  chapter 
of  John. 

On  a  certain  Sunday  on  Hallmark's  Prairie,  I  went  with 
my  father  and  mother  to  the  old-time  rawhide  lumber  church 
down  on  the  south  side  of  the  Prairie.  You  may  not  know 
what  rawhide  lumber  was.  It  was  lumber  sawed  from  oak 
trees.  It  was  called  rawhide  lumber  because  it  wouldn't 
stay  put.  It  worked  beautifully  when  "  green,"  but  when 
the  lumber  dried  under  the  heat  of  the  summer  sun,  it 
warped  in  every  direction.  In  some  respects  it  reminded 
me  of  the  hat,  the  ownership  of  which  was  ascribed  to 
Grimes.  It  was  said  that  ftis  hat  "  hung  down  ten  thousand 
ways  and  the  like  was  never  seen."  This  rawhide  lumber 
warped  in  every  conceivable  fashion.  For  that  reason  it  had 
to  be  nailed  very  securely.  If  it  were  not  thus  nailed  when 
green,  it  never  could  be  nailed,  because  a  nail  can't  be 
driven  through  a  rawhide  lumber  plank  after  it  seasons.  This 
church  had  a  pine  lumber  floor  and  pine  lumber  seats,  many 
of  which  did  not  have  any  backs  to  them. 

On  this  particular  Sunday,  Brother  Abe  Baker  preached, 
and  then  my   father  preached,  and  Brother  John  Baker 

89 


90         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

closed  with  an  exhortation.  These  dear  people  would  begin 
their  services  at  about  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  close 
them  some  time  in  the  afternoon,  the  time  for  the  benedic- 
tion varying  with  the  number  of  preachers  present  and  with 
the  time  it  took  for  the  Lord's  Supper  and  the  Foot-Washing. 

After  all  three  sermons  had  been  duly  preached  and  a 
closing  hymn  had  been  sung,  Brother  Baker  came  down  out 
of  the  pulpit,  opened  his  Bible  and  read  the  following  verses 
from  the  13th  chapter  of  John: 

"  Now  before  the  feast  of  the  passover,  when  Jesus  knew 
that  His  hour  was  come  that  He  should  depart  out  of  this 
world  unto  the  Father,  having  loved  His  own  which  were 
in  the  world,  He  loved  them  unto  the  end.  And  supper 
being  ended,  the  devil  having  now  put  into  the  heart  of 
Judas  Iscariot,  Simon's  son,  to  betray  Him ;  Jesus  knowing 
that  the  Father  had  given  all  things  into  His  hands,  and 
that  He  was  come  from  God,  and  went  to  God :  He  riseth 
from  supper  and  laid  aside  His  garments ;  and  took  a  towel, 
and  girded  himself.  After  that.  He  poureth  water  into  a 
basin  and  began  to  wash  the  disciples'  feet,  and  to  wipe 
them  with  the  towel  wherewith  He  was  girded.  Then  cometh 
He  to  Simon  Peter;  and  Peter  saith  unto  Him,  Lord,  dost 
thou  wash  my  feet?  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him, 
What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now ;  but  thou  shalt  know  here- 
after. Peter  saith  unto  Him,  Thou  shalt  never  wash  my 
feet.  Jesus  answered  him,  If  I  wash  thee  not,  thou  hast  no 
part  witth  me.  Simon  Peter  saith  unto  Him,  Lord,  not  my 
feet  only,  but  also  my  hands  and  my  head.  Jesus  saith  unto 
him,  He  that  is  washed  needeth  not  save  to  wash  his  feet, 
but  is  clean  every  whit ;  and  ye  are  clean  but  not  all.  For  He 
knew  who  should  betray  Him,  therefore  said  He,  Ye  are 
not  all  clean.  So  after  He  had  washed  their  feet  and  taken 
His  garments,  and  was  set  down  again,  He  said  unto  them, 
Know  ye  what  I  have  done  to  you  ?  Ye  call  me  Master  and 
Lord:  and  ye  say  well,  for  so  I  am.     If  I  then,  your  Lord 


A  HARDSHELL  FOOT  WASHING  91 

and  Master,  have  washed  your  feet ;  ye  also  ought  to  wash 
one  another's  feet.  For  I  have  given  you  an  example,  that 
ye  should  do  as  I  have  done  to  you.  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you.  The  servant  is  not  greater  than  his  Lord,  neither 
he  that  is  sent  greater  than  he  that  sent  him.  If  ye  know 
these  things,  happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them." 

Preparation  had  been  made  by  the  deacons  in  anticipa- 
tion of  this  exercise.  The  bread  and  wine  had  been  pro- 
cured, as  well  as  the  basins  and  towels  and  water  for  the 
foot-washers. 

I  reluctantly  reveal  a  secret  here.  These  dear,  good  peo- 
ple, when  a  foot-washing  time  was  approaching,  always  very 
carefully  washed  their  feet  before  they  went  to  the  foot- 
washing.  Not  only  that,  but  they  put  on  the  cleanest  kind 
of  clean  hosiery. 

After  Brother  Baker  had  read  the  Scripture  I  have  quoted, 
he  laid  aside  his  coat,  girded  himself  with  a  towel,  poured 
water  into  a  basin  and  approaching  Deacon  Jack  Bellamy, 
he  knelt  in  front  of  him  and  said: 

"  Brother  Bellamy,  may  I  wash  your  feet?  " 

Brother  Bellamy  assented,  and  the  dear  man  of  God,  thus 
kneeling  in  front  of  Deacon  Bellamy,  began  to  wash  his  feet. 
Deacon  Bellamy  in  the  meantime  had  removed  his  shoes  and 
stockings.  While  this  was  going  on,  the  women  of  the 
church,  at  the  other  end  of  the  building,  were  carrying  on 
the  same  exercises.  The  men  washed  each  other's  feet  and 
the  women  did  likewise.  The  greatest  of  decorum  was  pre- 
served and  the  occasion  was  always  a  most  solemn  one. 

The  foot-washing  began  after  the  Lord's  Supper  was  con- 
cluded. They  first  took  the  bread  and  wine  just  like  other 
Christians  do.  This  was  done  in  great  solemnity,  and  then 
the  foot- washing  followed.  After  Brother  Baker  had  washed 
Brother  Bellamy's  feet,  Brother  Bellamy  in  turn  washed 
Brother  Baker's  feet.  At  the  same  time,  my  father  was 
busy  washing  the  feet  of  old  Brother  Asa  Bellamy,  and  he 


92         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

in  turn  washed  my  father's  feet.  It  was  thus  that,  going 
from  one  to  the  other  and  reciprocating  this  evidence  of 
humility  and  love,  these  dear  people  proceeded  with  their 
foot-washing.  Many  were  the  strangers  who  came  down 
Hallmark's  Prairie  way  to  witness  the  foot-washing  exer- 
cises. But  in  every  case,  as  far  as  I  can  recall,  those  who 
came  to  scoff  remained  to  pray.  There  was  nothing  laugh- 
able in  this  solemn  religious  observance.  Whatever  else 
may  be  thought  of  it  or  said  of  it,  it  was  true  and  will  remain 
ever  true  that  these  simple  folk  believed  profoundly  that 
they  were  doing  the  will  of  God.  I  must  testify,  to  be  sin- 
cere, that  on  every  occasion  when  I  was  present  at  a  foot- 
washing,  there  was  what  the  dear  old  folks  would  call  a 
splendid  meeting.  They  would,  when  the  exercises  were 
concluded,  grasp  each  other's  hand,  shed  tears  of  Christian 
joy,  give  voice  to  expressions  of  tenderest  Christian  love, 
and  oft-times  these  dear  old  soldiers  of  the  Cross  would  be 
clasped  in  each  other's  arms.  Many  were  the  misunder- 
standings and  embryo  feuds  that  would  be  settled  on  these 
foot-washing  occasions.  No  man  could  ever  allow  an  enemy 
to  kneel  and  wash  his  feet,  and  no  man  could  ever  remain 
an  enemy  of  the  man  whose  feet  he  had  washed.  It  was 
thus  that  whatever  the  meaning  of  the  teaching  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, the  ceremonial  had  its  part  in  cementing  the  hearts  of 
these  dear  people  in  the  tenderest  bonds  of  Christian  and 
neighborly  affection. 

Now  and  then,  as  the  exercises  would  close,  some  of  the 
sisters  would  shout  aloud  for  joy.  On  one  occasion,  and  on 
only  one,  my  mother  shouted.  There  were  others  who  thus 
gave  expression  to  their  joy  in  this  simple  service  for  each 
other,  and  as  they  believed,  in  their  obedience  to  their  God. 

I  was  a  Missionary  Baptist  a  long  time  before  I  became 
convinced  that  foot-washing  ought  to  be  omitted.  Dr.  B.  H. 
Carroll  preached  a  sermon  on  the  subject  that  settled  me 
forever  on  the  question.    I  recite  the  point,  that  it  may  help 


A  HARDSHELL  FOOT  WASHING  93 

others.  After  Jesus  had  washed  the  disciples'  feet  and  told 
them  that  He  had  given  them  an  example  that  they  should 
follow,  He  added : 

"  If  ye  know  these  things,  happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them." 
Dr.  Carroll's  point  was  that  Jesus  gave  His  disciples  an 
example  of  humility  and  loving  service ;  that  it  was  not  just 
one  thing  that  the  foot-washing  illustrated,  but  many  things. 
It  was  an  injunction  to  humility,  to  service  and  to  brotherly 
love  all  in  one.  It  was  an  exhortation  to  helpfulness  and 
kindliness  of  soul.  Dr.  Carroll  made  the  point  that  if  we 
limited  the  exercise  simply  to  washing  one  another's  feet, 
we  robbed  the  words  of  Jesus  of  their  broad  and  compre- 
hensive significance.  I  had  not  been  convinced  by  the  argu- 
ments usually  employed  by  those  who  opposed  the  foot- 
washing  ceremony.  The  point  was  that  they  had  been 
walking  for  quite  a  little  way,  their  feet,  which  were  not 
covered  with  shoes,  but  sandals,  had  become  soiled  with  the 
dust  of  the  road  and  Jesus  did  for  them  a  needed  service  in 
washing  their  feet.  That  did  not  seem  convincing  to  me, 
but  Dr.  Carroll's  point  did. 


XI 
SOME  WORDS  CONCERNING  MY  FATHER 

MANY  REFERENCES  have  been  made  and  will  be 
made  in  this  story  concerning  my  dear  father.  He 
was  to  me  more  than  any  other  man.  He  was  a 
companion  to  his  sons.  He  loved  us  tenderly,  he  treat- 
ed us  with  the  utmost  kindness,  he  made  us  obey  him 
and  we  respected  him.  As  has  been  stated,  he  was  a  preacher 
and  a  doctor.  He  never  went  to  medical  college.  As  a  doctor 
he  was  self-taught.  He  became  one  of  the  best  practitioners 
of  medicine  I  ever  knew.  He  was  not  a  learned  man,  as 
men  count  education  now.  His  tuition  was  in  the  school  of 
life.  His  learning  was  profound,  but  it  was  acquired  first- 
hand with  men  and  nature  as  his  teachers.  He  accumulated 
a  large  medical  library  and  mastered  every  book  in  it.  He 
belonged  to  the  reform  school  of  medicine  and,  if  living 
today,  would  be  called  an  eclectic.  He  combined  all  of  the 
best  things  in  the  medical  practice  of  his  time  and  was  far 
and  away  the  best  doctor  known  to  me. 

The  latter  day  theory  in  medicine  is,  for  instance,  that 
fever  is  not  a  disease,  but  a  symptom.  It  has  come  also  to 
be  taught  in  our  medical  schools  and  by  our  medical  experts 
that  a  very  large  percentage  of  the  ills  to  which  flesh  is  heir 
are  caused  from  what  we  now  call  auto-intoxication.  My 
father  did  not  apply  this  high-sounding  term  to  this  condi- 
tion. He  called  it  "  engorgement  of  the  system."  He  would 
treat  what  he  called  engorgement  of  the  liver,  or  engorge- 
ment of  the  intestinal  tract,  by  "  cleansing  the  system."  He 
was  also  great  in  his  practice  in  setting  up  reaction.     He 

94 


CONCERNING  MY  FATHER  95 

taught  my  brother  and  me,  both  of  whom  were  medical  stu- 
dents, that  at  least  seventy-five  per  cent  of  all  the  ailments  in 
our  latitude  was  due  to  obstructions  and  diseases  in  the 
alimentary  tract.  We  had  not  then  come  to  the  time  of  the 
germ  theory  of  disease,  but  my  father  gave  medicine  that 
would  kill  any  germ  that  ever  "  rose  or  reigned  or  fell."  I 
not  only  studied  under  him,  but  I  practiced  with  him.  From 
my  boyhood  I  would  go  with  my  father  to  visit  his  patients. 
He  treated  them  in  the  simplest  kind  of  way  by  what  he 
called  emesis,  or  by  diaphoresis  or  by  purgation.  In  many 
cases  he  used  all  of  these  means  for  eliminating  poison,  and 
with  his  magnificent  common  sense  and  his  inherent  medical 
intuition,  he  succeeded  most  grandly  in  his  medical  work. 

The  old  style  medication  contemplated  simply  the  curing 
of  sick  people.  The  latter  day  science  has  to  do  with  methods 
of  preventing  sickness.  My  father's  work  was  almost  wholly 
pathological,  yet  in  many  instances  he  practiced,  in  his  simple 
way,  what  we  now  call  hygiene  and  sanitation.  He  stoutly 
opposed  mineral  poisons  for  medicines.  He  was  not  in 
favor  of  mercurialization,  nor  did  he  administer  any  of  the 
minerals  as  medicines  except  upon  rare  occasions.  If  he 
practiced  in  our  time  he  would  be  called,  by  some,  a  hydro- 
path,  because  he  used  many  of  the  hydrotherapy  appliances. 
He  believed  in  water,  hot  and  cold,  externally,  internally  and 
eternally,  and  frequently  coupled  this  water  with  what  he 
called  "  composition  tea  "  and  lobelia,  with  a  sprinkle  of 
capsicum  and  ipecachuana. 

There  was  another  thing  about  him  as  a  physician  to  which 
I  have  briefly  referred.  He  was  an  intuitive  diagnostician. 
He  did  not  need  the  latter  day  appliances  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain the  trouble  with  his  patients.  He  had  never  fooled 
with  microscopes  or  clinical  thermometers,  but  he  was  as 
quick  to  detect  an  infection  of  typhoid  fever,  pneumonia  or 
measles  as  the  scientist  who  is  equipped  with  the  latest 
methods  of  procedure. 


96         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

He  was  honest  to  his  heart's  core  and  frank  to  bluffness. 
If  he  visited  a  patient  who  was  not  really  ill,  but  was  suffer- 
ing from  some  imaginary  ailment,  he  told  him  so  plainly  and 
without  equivocation.  In  this  way  he  lost  some  clients,  but 
he  kept  his  conscience  clean.  He  never  administered  what 
the  doctors  call  "  placebos."  He  hated  shams  of  every  kind. 
He  believed  in  driving  directly  to  the  mark  and  in  telling 
the  plain  truth  without  garnishment  or  double  dealing. 

His  practice  extended  over  Gonzales,  Bastrop,  Fayette 
and  Caldwell  Counties.  He  often  rode  as  far  as  fifty  miles 
to  see  a  patient.  His  reputation  extended  over  these  four 
counties  and  he  had  friends  in  all  of  them  who  would  have 
no  other  physician  if  he  were  at  all  available.  Many  is  the 
man  he  saved  from  death  who  had  been  given  up  by  other 
doctors.  It  was  the  traditional  thing  to  do,  when  any  man  or 
woman  was  given  up  to  die,  to  send  for  my  father.  Many  of 
these  alleged  incurables  he  cured,  and  it  was  thus  his  repu- 
tation spread  and  grew  until  he  stood  head  and  shoulders 
above  any  doctor  in  those  four  counties. 

His  theory  of  medication  was  to  "  cleanse  the  system." 
Those  who  are  at  all  versed  in  the  mysteries  of  medical 
lore  know  that  there  are  but  four  methods  of  elimination 
known  to  the  human  frame.  Poisons  contained  in  the  system 
must  be  eliminated  either  by  the  lungs,  the  skin,  the  kidneys 
or  through  the  intestinal  tract.  In  every  trouble,  one  or  the 
other  of  these  avenues  is  closed,  sometimes  two,  and  now  and 
then  there  is  a  congestion  of  all,  and  this,  of  course,  is  a 
very  dangerous  condition.  My  father's  plan  was  to  arouse 
the  secretions  and  cleanse  the  system.  In  this  way,  his 
patients  recovered,  and  when  they  were  again  in  health  they 
had  escaped  the  multitudinous  sequelae  so  much  known  to 
practitioners  of  the  old  school.  He  never  salivated  a  patient 
and  never  left  one  with  the  terrible  effects  of  unwise  medi- 
cation. 

Looking  back  upon  my  father  and  his  career  as  a  physi- 


CONCERNING  MY  FATHER  97 

cian,  I  wonder  how  it  came  that  he  did  things  so  well.  The 
only  explanation  of  it  was  that  he  was  "  to  the  manner 
born,"  and  that,  coupled  with  this  inherent  congenital  equip- 
ment, he  was  possessed  of  a  remarkable  fund  of  common 
sense,  which  carried  him  through  every  difficulty.  If  he 
were  living  now  and  I  were  sick,  I  would  rather  have  him 
come  and  look  after  me  than  any  man  that  ever  lived.  I 
would,  without  hesitation,  cast  aside  all  of  the  late  day 
medical  equipment  and  trust  to  my  father's  good  sense  and 
medical  skill  rather  than  to  any  of  the  up-to-date  doctors. 

Aside  from  my  father's  work  as  a  physician,  he  was  a 
splendid  citizen  and  an  able  minister  of  the  Gospel.  He 
studied  and  marked  his  Bible,  held  many  of  its  passages 
sacredly  to  his  heart,  and  presented  the  Word  of  God  both 
with  pathos  and  with  power.  He  believed  profoundly  in 
the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  and  in  all  those  sacred  doc-» 
trines  that  have  made  great  men  and  blessed  the  world  since 
time  was  young.  He  never  had  any  doubt  of  any  truth  or 
any  statement  in  the  Book  of  God.  In  his  pulpit  ministra- 
tions he  never  apologized  for,  but  always  proclaimed,  the 
Gospel. 

I  would  not  have  you  think  for  a  moment  that  my  father 
was  a  perfect  man.  He  had  his  faults.  One  of  these  was 
an  impetuosity  that  often  betrayed  him  into  hasty  speech 
and  action.  He  had  a  quick,  explosive  temper,  and  while 
he  was  forgiving  and  tender  in  his  nature,  he  was  as  brave 
as  a  lion  and  was  ready  to  resent  an  injury  or  an  insult  at 
the  drop  of  a  hat. 

It  was  wonderful  about  those  old  frontier  men.  They 
carried  their  guns  and  revolvers  everywhere  they  went.  My 
father,  in  the  frontier  times,  would  take  his  arms  with  him 
right  into  the  pulpit  and  lay  them  beside  the  Bible.  No  one 
knew  when  an  attack  would  be  made  by  the  Indians,  and 
those  old-time  Texans  believed  that  "  self-preservation  was 
the  first  law  of  nature."     While  he  believed  profoundly  in 


98         DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

predestination,  he  was  like  the  other  old  Primitive  Baptist 
preacher  of  whom  I  heard.  He  was  going  from  home  one 
Sunday  morning  to  a  church  appointment  where  he  was  to 
preach,  and  before  he  left  he  took  down  his  gun  and  saw 
that  it  was  in  first-class  condition.  His  son  twitted  him  with 
the  remark: 

"  Father,  if  you  believe  in  predestination,  why  are  you 
afraid  of  Indians?" 

"  Ah,  my  son,"  he  replied,  "  I  did  not  know  but  what  the 
Lord  had  predestinated  that  I  should  kill  an  Indian  today." 

That  was  the  way  my  father  viewed  the  matter.  While  he 
believed  in  the  purposes  of  God  and  in  God's  care  of  us,  one 
by  one,  he  at  the  same  time  availed  himself  of  every  common 
sense  protection.  During  all  of  my  youth  time  he  kept  his 
arms  right  by  his  bed.  If  he  did  not  have  his  revolver  under 
his  head  as  he  slept,  he  kept  it  in  reach  of  his  hand,  and  was 
always  ready  for  the  sudden  attack  of  savage  or  marauder. 

A  wave  of  indigation  swept  over  the  old  Texans  when 
the  first  six  shooter  law  was  passed  in  1873.  I  was  then 
fifteen  years  old  and  had  become  very  expert  in  the  use  of 
a  revolver.  My  father  allowed  my  brother  and  me  to 
acquire  the  use  of  firearms  early  in  our  lives.  I  cannot 
remember  when  we  did  not  have  these  implements  of  de- 
struction in  our  home.  He  had  passed  through  the  war, 
had  lived  on  the  frontier,  and  had  found  himself  surrounded, 
through  all  of  his  life  in  Texas,  by  hostile  conditions.  When 
the  first  six  shooter  law  was  passed,  we  were  living  in  Bas- 
trop County.  This  law  was  adopted  during  the  administration 
of  E.  J.  Davis,  the  great  Republican  or  Radical  of  that 
time.  He  was  the  most  cordially  hated  man  that  was  ever 
in  public  position  in  Texas,  and  when  the  six  shooter  law 
was  passed,  there  was  a  coincident  order  empowering 
negroes  to  be  policemen.  Many  of  the  negroes  were  equipped 
with  arms  and  the  white  men  were  deprived  of  arms.  It 
was  almost  revolutionary — so  much  so  that  the  old  Texans 


CONCERNING  MY  FATHER  99 

ignored  the  law  almost  universally,  and  the  result  was  that  a 
good  many  negroes  and  some  white  men  lost  their  lives. 

During  this  period,  I  remember  a  Democratic  barbecue 
that  was  held  on  Hallmark's  Prairie,  at  which  Joseph  D. 
Sayers,  of  Bastrop,  then  a  young  lawyer,  was  the  principal 
speaker.  One  of  our  white  Republicans  had  taken  a  Negro 
policemen  there  to  keep  order  and  to  see  that  the  white  men 
were  not  armed.  Joe  Sayers  was  as  brave  as  a  lion.  He  had 
been  a  gallant  colonel  in  the  Confederate  service  and  was 
then  one  of  the  rising  young  men  of  Texas.  He  afterwards 
went  to  Congress  from  his  district  and  later  was  Governor 
of  our  State.  Jones  &  Sayers  were  my  father's  attorneys, 
and  so  it  was  not  remarkable  that  all  of  us  were  at  this 
barbecue  on  this  eventful  day. 

When  Sayers  arose  to  speak,  he  looked  around,  and  spy- 
ing the  white  Republican,  or  Radical  as  we  called  him,  he 
began  to  denounce  him  by  name  and  added : 

"  I  want  Mr. to  understand  that  I  am  here  on  this 

ground  armed.  I  have  a  pistol  in  each  one  of  my  pockets 
and  I  defy  him  and  all  his  Negro  police  to  disarm  me.  The 
first  man  that  approaches  me  to  disarm  me  I  shall  shoot  dead 
on  the  spot,  and  I  know  that  my  friends  here  will  finish  up 
the  balance  of  the  bunch." 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  was  no  effort  that  day  to 
disarm  Mr.  Sayers  or  the  other  Democrats  who  were  present. 
This  will  give,  however,  some  insight  into  the  situation  in 
Texas  at  that  time. 

My  father  believed  to  his  dying  day  that  any  law  prohib- 
iting the  carrying  of  arms  was  an  outrage  on  the  liberties 
of  the  people,  just  as  he  believed  that  no  man  should  be 
allowed  to  fence  vast  bodies  of  land  and  thus  keep  the 
common  people  from  enjoying  the  blessings  of  free  air,  free 
water  and  free  grass.  He  contended  that  any  law  prohibit- 
ing  the   carrying   of   fire-arms   was   designed   in   its   very 


100       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

essence  to  disarm  the  honest,  law-abiding  citizens,  but  that 
it  would  at  no  time  disarm  the  criminals. 

My  father  was  a  magnificent  business  man.  He  was  the 
best  horse  trader  and  best  judge  of  horses  I  ever  knew.  He 
would,  in  the  springtime,  come  down  into  the  horse  herd 
and  would  here  and  there  pick  out  what  my  brother  and  I 
would  call  a  "  stack  of  bones  "  and  say  to  us : 

"  Boys,  bring  that  colt  home  tonight  so  that  he  can  be  put 
in  the  barn  and  fed." 

We  would  laugh  at  what  we  thought  were  our  father's 
miscalculations,  time  and  time  again,  but  his  judgment  never 
failed.  Every  one  of  these  raw-boned  plugs  that  he  would 
select  would,  with  the  stimulus  of  proper  feed,  soon  bloom 
out  into  one  of  the  finest  horses  in  Bastrop  County.  It  was 
thus  that  he  not  only  conserved  his  own  herd  of  horses,  but 
he  was  able,  by  this  horse  sense,  to  buy  promising  colts  from 
others  and  thus  make  a  great  deal  of  money  on  his  horses. 


XII 


SOME  REMINISCENCES  OF  THE  '70'S  IN  OLD 
BASTROP  COUNTY 

1HAVE  referred  in  a  previous  chapter  to  the  barbecue 
on  Hallmark's  Prairie.  This  was  a  procedure  that  was 
emulated  in  many  other  sections  of  the  county  and 
State.  The  people  were  just  emerging  from  the  strife  and 
carnage  of  Civil  War.  They  had  not  yet  emancipated  them- 
selves from  the  effects  of  the  exultation  of  their  victors.  The 
South  was  stunned  and  subdued,  but  never  conquered.  We 
had  the  Negro  question  to  deal  with,  we  had  our  ruined 
homes  and  fortunes  to  repair,  and  we  had  to  grow  a  new  gen- 
eration of  men  who  would  take  their  places  in  the  walks  of 
life  and  cut  their  full  width  through  the  disasters  the  great 
Southern  people  had  suffered.  It  is  not  remarkable  that  the 
white  folks  of  Bastrop  County — the  whites  were  in  the  min- 
ority there  at  that  time  and  probably  are  today — often  met 
together  to  compare  notes  and  to  take  a  new  hold  upon 
things  political  and  social. 

While  Joseph  D.  Sayers  was  one  of  the  foremost  young 
men  of  that  time  and  place,  the  great  man  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  Southwest  Texas  in  the  70's  was  Wash  Jones,  of 
Bastrop.  He  was  head  and  shoulders  above  any  of  his  con- 
temporaries. I  have  not  heard  him  speak  since  I  was  seven- 
teen years  old,  and  since  then  I  have  heard  the  greatest 
men  of  the  world  in  their  most  majestic  flights  of  oratory, 
but  I  give  it  as  my  deliberate  conviction  that  for  natural 
oratorical  ability  Wash  Jones  has  never  had  a  superior  on 
the  American  platform.    There  was  one  grave  reason  why 

101 


102       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

he  never  came  into  his  own.  The  nearest  that  he  reached 
it  was  when  he  became  a  member  of  Congress.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  whiskey,  Wash  Jones  might  have  been  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  He  was  so  far  in  advance  of  th~e 
men  of  his  time,  and  so  far  removed  from  them  in  ability, 
that  anything  might  have  been  possible  to  him  had  he  let 
liquor  alone.  Even  as  it  was,  he  was  a  tremendous  power 
in  all  that  part  of  Texas.  His  home  was  at  Bastrop,  and 
inasmuch  as  he  was  one  of  my  father's  warmest  personal 
and  political  friends,  I,  as  a  boy,  learned  to  know  him  well. 
I  would  ride  half  across  the  county  to  hear  him  speak,  and 
this  always  with  the  approval  of  my  father. 

One  of  these  great  barbecues  was  given  near  Cockrell's 
Hill  in  Fayette  County  July  4,  1871.  My  father  was  busy 
with  his  practice  that  day  and  so  I  was  permitted  to  go  alone. 
I  was  at  that  time  thirteen  years  of  age.  This  barbecue  was 
very  largely  attended.  I  was  a  very  little  boy,  and  in  the 
absence  of  my  father  I  feared  I  would  have  a  rather  short 
shrift  for  my  dinner.  The  speaking  was  to  be  in  the  after- 
noon.   There  had  been  a  "  tournament  "  in  the  morning. 

When  dinner  was  announced  I  hastened  to  the  table  in 
the  hope  that  I  might  secure  for  myself  a  reasonably  full 
repast.  I  found  myself  standing  by  "  Pod "  Cockrell,  a 
brother  of  "  Chig "  Cockrell,  who  kept  the  big  store  on 
Cockrell's  Hill.  "  Pod  "  Cockrell  was  a  very  staid  and  crusty 
old  bachelor,  about  five  feet  nine  inches  tall,  squarely  built, 
with  heavy  muscles,  deep  chest  and  very  long  flowing  beard. 
He  was  awe-inspiring  to  a  boy,  but  none  the  less  the  boy 
who  stood  beside  him  that  day  essayed  to  play  a  joke  on 
him.  Mr.  Cockrell  got  a  full  cup  of  coffee,  but  the  boy  got 
none.  When  Mr.  Cockrell  looked  over  the  other  way,  the 
boy  very  quietly  slipped  Mr.  Cockrell's  cup  of  coffee  over 
beside  his  own  plate,  and  when  Mr.  Cockrell  looked  around 
and  saw  that  his  coffee  was  gone,  he  had  the  funniest  ex- 
pression on  his  face  that  I  have  ever  seen.    He  looked  along 


THE  70'S  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY  103 

by  my  plate  and  espied  the  departed  coffee.  At  once  he 
grew  very  grave  and  ministerial  in  his  demeanor.  Turning 
upon  me  he  said: 

"  Young  man,  the  next  thing  it  will  be  a  yearling,  and 
then  a  horse,  and  a  little  while  later  you  will  be  an  out-and- 
out  criminal.    If  I  were  you  I  would  stop  now." 

I  am  sure  that  he  did  not  know  that  I  was  Dr.  E.  A. 
Cranfill's  boy,  or  he  would  have  appreciated  the  joke  and 
would  have  gently  asked  me  to  replace  his  coffee.  Instead 
of  that,  he  gave  me  that  terrible  lecture  from  which  I  have 
not  yet  recovered.  When  he  turned  away,  I  gently  slipped 
his  coffee  back,  and  none  of  that  barbecue  tasted  good  to 
me.  However,  I  managed  to  secure  enough  food  to  stay  my 
hunger  and  ^yas  on  one  of  the  front  seats  when  Wash  Jones 
began  his  great  oration  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

I  never  shall  forget  his  stateliness,  the  majesty  of  his 
presence,  the  resonance  of  his  deep  bass  voice,  the  wonderful 
sweep  of  his  eloquence,  or  the  tremendous  influence  he  exer- 
cised over  his  auditors.  He  held  them  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand.  After  reading  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  he 
began  his  address  by  saying : 

"  I  have  selected  for  my  text  today  these  words :  '  We 
hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident — that  all  men  are  cre- 
ated equal.' " 

There  he  stopped,  and  from  that  short  sentence  he  spoke 
almost  three  hours.  The  address  must  have  begun  at  about 
1 :  30  o'clock  and  it  was  nearly  5  when  the  tremendous 
arraignment  of  the  South's  enemies  and  oppressors  reached 
its  climax  and  its  close.  I  have  never  forgotten  that  speech, 
and,  as  long  as  I  live,  I  shall  look  back  upon  it  as  one  of  the 
red  letter  occasions  of  my  life.  It  deserved  to  class  with 
the  orations  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Henry  Grady,  Jas.  G. 
Blaine  and  Charles  H.  Spurgeon.  Of  course  it  was  not  a 
sermon.  Wash  Jones  was  not  a  religious  man.  He  held  all 
religion  in  the  deepest  veneration,  but  he  had  not  made  a 


104       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

personal  profession  of  religion.  While  this  was  true,  he  was 
dealing  with  questions  that  stirred  the  very  nerve-centers  of 
the  people's  hearts,  and  in  a  high  and  noble  sense,  that  speech 
that  day  was  a  sermonic  classic. 

There  were  other  orators  known  to  me  as  a  boy,  but  none 
of  them  deserved  to  class  with  Wash  Jones.  There  were 
Judge  Burgess  of  Seguin;  W.  B.  Miller  of  Gonzales,  a 
brother  of  Nick  Miller,  the  great  cattle  man ;  John  Ireland, 
who  afterwards  became  Governor  of  Texas,  and  W.  B. 
Sayers,  brother  of  Joseph  D.  Sayers.  Over  at  Gonzales 
there  was  a  lawyer  by  the  name  of  Parker,  who  was  what 
Colonel  Jones  called  a  "  Hardshell  Democrat."  He  used  to 
go  around  to  the  barbecues  and  praise  the  Radicals,  but 
Wash  Jones  would  not  have  any  of  that.  He  assailed  them 
politically  and  personally,  and  our  present  day  politicians 
who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  history  of  that  period  know 
nothing  of  strenuous  politics. 

A  tournament  was  a  riding  contest.  The  plan  of  proced- 
ure was  to  erect  poles  at  certain  distances  apart  and  place 
on  these  poles  arms,  to  which  rings  would  be  attached  or 
hung  on  nails.  The  riders,  each  with  a  spear,  would  run 
past  these  poles,  the  object  being  to  catch  these  rings  on  the 
spear.  This  was  great  sport  and  indulged  in  by  the  cowboy 
gentry  of  that  period  with  great  avidity.  On  nearly  every 
barbecue  occasion  there  would  be  a  tournament  in  the  morn- 
ing or  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  victorious  knight  would  be 
privileged  to  crown  his  sweetheart  queen  of  the  occasion. 
The  exercise  called  not  only  for  expert  horsemanship,  but 
good  marksmanship,  because  taking  aim  at  these  rings  was 
just  about  like  taking  aim  at  any  kind  of  game.  The  rider's 
horse  was  also  a  factor  of  no  small  moment  in  the  equation. 
A  well-trained  tournament  horse  was  much  in  demand.  It 
did  not  follow  that  a  cow  horse  was  inherently  adapted  to 
this  exercise.  Cow  horses  and  cow  ponies  were  trained,  and 
became  as  expert  in  helping  to  handle  the  cattle  as  the  cow- 


THE  70'S  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY  105 

boys  themselves.  A  trained  cow  pony  was  worth  his  weight 
in  gold,  and  a  trained  cow  horse  was  in  many  ways  very 
valuable.  The  most  of  the  cowboy  work  was  done  by  horses 
of  medium  size,  and  these  horses  were  trained  to  do  the 
much  needed  things  when  the  cowboy  was  in  action.  The 
same  was  true  of  a  tournament  horse,  and  the  man  who 
went  into  a  tournament  without  a  trained  mount  would  al^ 
ways  lose.  This  was  a  fashion  that  gave  great  zest  to  many 
a  neighborhood  occasion,  and  every  youth  at  some  stage  of 
his  pilgrimage  had  to  go  through  the  exercise  and  prove  him- 
self worthy  of  the  foemen  who  gathered  to  test  his  mettle. 
Christmas  occasions  were  characterized  by  constant 
rounds  of  country  dances.  The  Southwest  Texas  youth  who 
did  not  attend  a  dance  party  every  night  of  Christmas  week 
except  Sunday  night,  was  not  of  much  consequence.  I  have 
often  ridden  as  far  as  twenty  miles  to  attend  a  dance,  and 
after  the  dance  was  over  I  would  ride  home  and  be  ready 
for  work  in  the  morning. 


XIII 
THE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  AFFLICTION 

WHEN  I  was  about  twelve  years  old,  I  went  to  stay 
all  night  with  my  friends,  the  Jenkins  boys.  They 
lived  about  a  mile  from  my  father's  house  and 
were  my  much-loved  playfellows  at  school.  I  had  frequently 
thus  gone  away  to  spend  the  night  with  neighbor  boys  and 
there  was  nothing  that  I  enjoyed  more  than  this.  On  this 
particular  night,  I  ate  rather  a  hearty  supper  and,  as  was 
the  custom  among  the  farm  people,  we  retired  early.  I  slept 
with  the  grown-up  boy,  Alex.  Jenkins,  who  was  afterwards 
many  times  sheriff  of  Bastrop  County.  At  that  time  he  was 
a  young  fellow  on  his  first  pins,  and,  like  the  other  Jenkinses, 
was  an  unusually  fine  young  man.  After  we  had  been  in 
bed  for  some  thirty  minutes,  I  suppose,  and  after  both  of 
us  had  fallen  asleep,  I  awoke  with  a  terrible  sense  of  suffo- 
cation. I  began  to  yell  and  soon  aroused  the  entire  house- 
hold. I  thought  I  was  dying  and  told  them  so.  Alex,  soon 
had  his  pony  saddled  and  went  post  haste  after  my  father. 
Meantime  Mrs.  Jenkins  had  found  the  camphor  bottle,  and 
with  the  use  of  this  and  other  restoratives  I  was  quieting 
down  by  the  time  my  father  reached  the  Jenkins  home.  T 
was  not  feeling  all  right,  however,  and  my  father  took  me 
up  behind  him  on  his  big  horse  and  took  me  home. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  a  life-long  affliction.  After 
this  I  was  very  reluctant  to  go  away  from  home  to  spend  the 
night.  It  was  true  that  I  did  go  many  times,  but  always  with 
a  feeling  of  insecurity  and  uncertainty.  I  felt  perfectly 
safe  at  home  when  my  father  was  there,  and  comparatively 

106 


A  GREAT  AFFLICTION  107 

safe  even  when  he  was  away,  because  my  mother  had  learned 
to  be  a  first-class  physician  herself  in  her  own  sweet  way. 
She  had  ministered  to  the  sick  many  times,  and  I  have  known 
her  to  even  save  life.  The  trouble  that  I  had  that  night 
was  what  my  father  called  "  palpitation  of  the  heart,"  and 
he  said  it  was  occasioned  by  acute  indigestion.  Whatever  it 
was,  I  suffered  much  excruciating  agony,  and  through  the 
years  this  physical  trouble,  which  began  that  way  in  the 
years  long  gone,  has  been  a  great  handicap.  I  did  not  allow 
it  to  spoil  my  childhood.  I  went  now  and  then  to  spend 
the  night  with  the  neighbor  boys,  and  later  on,  when  I  had 
reached  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age,  I  went  away  quite 
often  in  the  Autumn,  when  our  own  cotton  crop  had  been 
gathered,  to  assist  in  picking  cotton  for  our  neighbors  and 
thus  earn  a  little  ready  money.  My  brother,  however,  was 
always  with  me  and  he  used  the  old-time  treatment  that  my 
father  loved  so  well,  so  that  when  I  was  away  from  home 
with  him  and  took  one  of  my  "  spells,"  he  would  immediately 
fill  me  up  with  composition  tea,  lobelia  and  ipecac,  and  I 
would  soon  be  relieved  of  the  original  trouble,  even  if  I  had 
a  worse  one  in  its  place. 

While  I  did  not  know  it  at  the  time,  the  trouble  antedated 
the  first  spell  of  this  kind  that  I  had  when  I  was  visiting  the 
Jenkins  boys.  It  was  congenital.  As  I  have  recited  in  this 
chronicle,  I  was  born  on  the  Texas  frontier,  and  during  all 
the  months  preceding  my  birth,  my  mother  was  hourly  in 
terror  of  the  marauding  savages.  She  expected  at  any  time 
that  they  would  swoop  down  and  make  a  finish  of  the  fam- 
ily. It  was  under  these  conditions  that  I  was  born,  and  I 
have  been  told  by  my  mother  that  when  I  was  not  yet  a 
year  old,  I  was  attacked  with  terrible  convulsions  and  they 
thought  I  would  die.  I  bit  my  tongue  almost  in  two  a  little 
later  on,  after  my  teeth  had  come,  in  another  spell  of  this 
kind.  There  are  scars  on  my  tongue  today  from  the  effects 
of  these  early  nervous  troubles,  but  you  would  never  know 


108       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

it  if  you  heard  me  talk,  because  my  tongue,  I  would  have 
you  understand,  was  in  no  wise  disabled  by  these  childhood 
troubles.  The  fact  was,  however,  that  I  was  a  nervous  boy, 
though  I  did  not  discover  it  until  this  time  at  the  home  dl 
Mr.  Jenkins.  I  had  been  well  all  my  life,  so  far  as  I  can 
remember,  and  after  I  had  passed  the  period  of  early  child- 
hood, I  never  again  suffered  an  attack  of  convulsions  61 
any  kind. 

All  my  life,  however,  I  have  suffered  with  recurrences  of 
these  attacks,  and  as  I  have  grown  older,  they  have  assumed 
protean  shape  and  form.  Every  day  of  my  life,  I  have  used 
up  all  the  surplus  nervous  energy  that  I  accumulated  the 
night  before.  I  have  never  had  what  you  would  call  a 
reserve  force  of  nervous  energy.  I  have  lived  a  very  active 
life  and  have  been  a  hard  worker  in  every  line  of  work  in 
which  I  have  engaged.  It  was  so  in  my  childhood.  I  worked 
like  fighting  fire,  and  it  was  no  wonder  that  O.  S.  Fowler, 
the  great  phrenologist,  said  of  me  when  he  examined  my 
head  in  Waco,  when  I  was  about  twenty-eight,  that  I  would 
make  as  furious  a  charge  in  order  to  capture  a  mouse  as  I 
would  to  circumvent  an  elephant.  That  was  exactly  the 
truth.  I  have  never  quite  been  able  to  differentiate  between 
small  things  and  large  things  in  my  workaday  life.  I  have 
fought  hard  day  by  day,  battling  with  whatever  obstructions 
crossed  my  path,  and  I  have  not  been  fortunate  in  my  ability 
to  conserve  my  nervous  energy. 

If  I  had  been  a  woman,  I  would  have  sometimes  been 
called  hysterical,  but  I  have  now  outlived  the  former  symp- 
toms of  that  kind.  In  this  childhood  spell  of  which  I  speak, 
I  really  did  think  I  was  dying,  and  many  have  been  the 
times  in  my  boyhood  and  later  in  my  maturer  youth  and 
years,  that  I  felt  my  hour  had  come.  I  know  exactly  how 
a  man  feels  when  he  is  dying,  and  I  will  not  be  surprised 
at  any  of  the  symptoms  when  I  am  in  extremis.  My  dear 
mother,  from  whom  I  inherited  much  of  this  neurasthenic 


A  GREAT  AFFLICTION  109 

diathesis,  said  to  me  after  death  was  on  her  that  she  felt 
like  she  had  an  attack  of  hysterics.  She  had  the  character- 
istics dyspnoea  and  the  other  symptoms  that  had  so  much 
annoyed  her  during  her  pilgrimage. 

This  trouble  assumes  many  forms,  one  of  which  is  insom- 
nia. Many  have  been  the  nights  that  I  have  passed  over 
hour  by  hour  without  being  able  to  sleep.  Most  people 
sleep  the  sounder,  the  more  sleep  they  have  lost.  My  trouble 
has  been  that  the  more  sleep  I  lose,  the  less  I  can  sleep, 
so  I  have  had  to  be  very  careful  to  take  every  advantage  to 
find  rest  for  a  tense  and  irritable  nervous  system. 

In  my  childhood  these  spells  would  always  be  accompanied 
with  distressing  symptoms.  I  have  been  examined  by  the 
most  distinguished  heart  specialists  in  the  world,  and  have 
never  been  told  by  any  of  them  that  I  had  heart  disease. 

Once  when  in  boyhood  I  suffered  an  attack  of  this  kind, 
I  jumped  out  of  bed,  cleared  the  room  at  about  two  bounds 
and  ran  like  a  deer.  I  had  that  sense  of  suffocation  that 
my  Uncle  Charlie,  my  father's  youngest  brother,  must  have 
felt  when  he  had  similar  spells  in  his  boyhood  in  the  olcl 
Kentucky  home.  Uncle  Charlie  came  running  to  the  house 
one  day,  panting  for  breath  in  an  agony  of  uneasiness  and 
terror,  and  said: 

"  Oh,  mother,  I  have  almost  lost  my  breath,  and  I  would 
rather  lose  anything  in  the  world  than  my  breath ! " 

I  have  had  this  experience  over  and  over  again — I  do  not 
doubt,  a  thousand  times — and  I  pity  any  man,  woman  or 
child  who  ever  endured  the  agony  of  this  kind  of  suffering. 
Many  is  the  night  when  I  have  prayed  the  Lord  to  send  me 
the  toothache  or  an  ingrowing  toe-nail  or  an  attack  of  appen- 
dicitis— anything  in  the  world  that  would  be  a  pain.  A  pain 
would  have  been  such  a  relief.  I  had  no  pain  whatever,  but 
was  suffering  that  excruciating  agony  that  comes  from  a 
sense  of  impending  dissolution. 

Now,  I  have  never  been  afraid  to  die  when  I  was  in  my 


110       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

normal  health.  I  have  no  particular  fondness  for  dying. 
The  fact  is  that  I  like  this  world,  I  love  the  people  in  it  and 
I  am  charmed  with  the  opportunities  for  usefulness  that 
stretch  out  on  every  hand.  While  all  of  this  is  true,  I  real- 
ize that  life's  end  sometime  must  come,  and  normally  I  have 
not  been  afraid  of  its  end.  However,  when  I  have  had  spells 
of  this  kind,  it  has  not  been  a  normal  condition,  but  an  abnor- 
mal one,  so  I  have  been  in  absolute  terror  of  death,  even 
when  I  was  living  the  best  Christian  life  I  ever  lived  at  all. 
All  physicians  wiil  understand  what  I  mean,  and  all  others 
who  have  ever  had  this  sort  of  trouble  .will  also  comprehend 
what  I  have  here  related. 

The  most  disagreeable  manifestation  of  the  trouble  that 
I  have  ever  suffered  has  been  that  of  a  super-sensitive  ner- 
vousness concerning  the  matter  of  sleep.  I  have  been  a  great 
burden  to  my  family  in  many  ways  and  this  I  profoundly 
regret.  I  raised  a  daughter  to  be  grown,  as  well  as  a  son, 
and  I  know  that,  while  I  tried  hard  to  make  their  childhood 
and  youth-time  years  the  happiest  of  their  lives,  I  have  been 
to  them  a  great  burden  with  respect  to  this  affliction.  I  never 
could  bear  to  have  noises  around  my  home  at  night,  and  on 
account  of  this  super-sensitiveness  I  have  had  to  retire  early 
and  court  sleep  instead  of  sitting  up  in  order  to  get  sleepy. 
It  has  been  one  long  agonizing  nightmare,  and  while  it  seems 
now  I  will  live  out  perhaps  more  than  the  average  span  ol 
life,  unless  a  tree  falls  on  me  or  I  get  run  over  by  an  auto- 
mobile, the  fact  remains  that  my  life  has  been  immeasurably 
marred  by  this  affliction.  Even  before  I  had  eye  trouble  and 
was  thus  disabled  from  night  reading,  I  was  cut  off  from 
much  study  at  night  from  the  fact  that  it  so  excited  my  brain 
that  after  too  much  cerebration  after  supper,  I  could  not 
find  any  sleep  whatever  when  I  had  retired  for  rest. 

Now,  this  accounts  for  my  absence  from  many  public 
functions  of  various  kinds.  I  dearly  love  social  life.  I  love 
my  friends  as  few  men  have  ever  loved  their  friends.    I  have 


A  GREAT  AFFLICTION  111 

a  supreme  joy  in  being  with  my  friends  in  a  social  way.  I 
love  the  prayer-meetings.  I  love  the  Sunday  night  services. 
Indeed,  I  love  all  the  services  of  the  church  and  I  love  to 
be  at  public  meetings.  The  fact,  however,  is  that  on  account 
of  this  congenital  neurasthenic  condition  I  escape  every  one 
of  them  that  I  possibly  can.  Sometimes  it  has  happened  that 
under  great  stress  of  either  social  or  religious  obligation  I 
have  gone  out  to  these  meetings  at  night,  and  even  if  I  did 
not  do  anything  but  sit  and  hear  a  sermon  or  engage  in  the 
singing,  it  has  cost  me  a  night's  sleep.  The  man  who  is 
physically  organized  otherwise  cannot  understand  this.  My 
brother  never  could.  He  is  just  as  different  from  me  as  day 
is  from  night.  He  can  sleep  anywhere  you  put  him  and  in 
any  position  that  he  finds  himself.  He  can  cuddle  up  on  a 
seat  in  a  smoking  car  and  sleep  soundly  for  ten  mortal  hours. 
I  could  not  sleep  in  such  a  position  as  that  if  my  life  de- 
pended upon  it. 

One  night,  after  preaching  in  one  of  our  city  churches,  I 
did  not  sleep.  Next  morning  I  asked  my  wife  if  she  could 
account  for  this  remarkable  fact — that  whereas  my  sermons 
put  the  audience  to  sleep,  they  kept  me  awake  all  night.  I 
am  taking  my  readers  into  my  confidence  in  this  recital,  in 
order  that  when  I  am  gone  I  may  be  better  understood.  1 
know  that  there  are  brethren  and  friends  who  have  wondered 
why  I  slipped  out  of  conventions  and  public  meetings  at 
evening  time  and  sought  my  room  when  they  thought  I 
should  have  attended.  I  am  now  giving  you  the  explanation. 
I  have  to  take  every  advantage  to  get  mental  rest  and  to  get 
quietude  for  my  nerves,  or  I  am  unfit  for  the  next  day's 
tasks. 

I  have  been  a  great  bore  to  hotel  keepers  and  sleeping  car 
agents  wherever  I  have  traveled.  I  always  write  and  ask 
for  a  room  away  from  the  elevator,  fronting  on  the  court, 
off  the  street  car  line.  If  I  get  a  room  that  is  exposed  to 
the  noise  of  the  street  or  the  noise  of  the  elevator,  it  is  good- 


112       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

bye  sleep  and  subjection  to  all  the  agonies  of  brain  exhaust- 
ing and  nerve-racking  insomnia. 

I  have  counted  all  the  sheep  in  the  universe.  If  there  are 
sheep  in  the  other  planets,  I  have  counted  them.  I  have  gone 
for  hours  and  hours,  trying  my  best  to  get  one  minute  of 
quietude  in  sleep  and  have  failed.  I  pity  profoundly  from 
the  very  depths  of  my  soul  every  one  who  is  thus  afflicted, 
and  if  there  were  any  panacea  for  this  trouble  in  this 
world,  I  would  give  for  it  all  of  my  possessions.  I  am  not 
selfish  in  this.  I  know  that  my  own  tenure  of  life  cannot  be 
very  long  at  best.  While  this  is  true,  there  are  many  others 
similarly  afflicted,  many  more  than  this  reader  knows,  and 
I  wish  that  I  could  leave  behind  me  some  surcease  of  pain 
and  strife  and  weariness  and  tears  for  those  who  suffer  as 
I  have  suffered. 

My  dear  daughter  has  said  to  me  many  a  time: 
"  Papa,  I  have  walked  on  my  eyeballs  all  my  life." 
The  dear  child  is  right.  That  may  have  been  what  caused 
her  eye  trouble  some  years  ago,  which  is  now  very  happily 
recovered.  It  is  the  same  with  friends  who  have  been 
around  me.  I  have  made  some  of  my  dearest  friends  some- 
what miserable  when  they  have  been  guests  in  my  home  by 
quietly  suggesting  that  they  tip  down  the  stairs  next  morn- 
ing or  up  the  stairs  at  night,  and  refrain  from  any  kind  of 
noise  as  they  walked  around  the  premises. 

Now  I  have  delivered  myself  on  this  subject,  and  I  would 
make  an  apology  containing  more  words  than  all  the  pages 
and  chapters  of  this  book  if  it  would  erase  from  the  past 
pages  of  my  life  the  discomfort  I  have  given  others  and  the 
pain  I  have  myself  suffered  on  account  of  this  affliction.  I 
could  not  help  it.  I  would  have  helped  it  if  I  could.  I  would 
have  been  as  phlegmatic  and  tranquil  of  nerve  and  brain 
as  my  dear  brother  if  I  could  have  been,  but  it  was  not 
for  me. 

Now,  as  I  have  said  this  much,  I  am  going  to  say  some 


A  GREAT  AFFLICTION  113 

more.  I  have  learned  that  by  reasonable  care  I  can  avoid 
many  of  these  attacks,  and  I  am  going  to  give  to  the  readers 
of  this  chronicle  some  of  the  simple  suggestions  I  have 
found  helpful.  I  formed  the  habit  of  smoking  shuck  cig- 
arettes and  then  afterwards  put  tobacco  in  them.  Later 
on,  I  learned  how  to  smoke  a  pipe,  and  after  I  grew  up  I 
became  a  cigar  smoker.  I  never  did  smoke  regularly  and  I 
never  chewed  tobacco,  but  I  kept  up  the  tobacco  habit  at 
intervals  until  I  was  thirty-one  years  of  age,  at  which  time 
I  abandoned  it  forever.  The  use  of  tobacco  on  the  part  of 
nervous  people  is  equal  exactly  to  buying  their  own  coffin 
nails  and  driving  them  into  their  coffins.  I  strongly  adjure 
every  tobacco  user  in  the  world  to  give  up  this  habit.  If  he 
hasn't  this  trouble  now,  he  will  have  it  later  on  if  he  keeps 
up  his  nerve-racking  indulgences. 

The  old-time  Texans  were  all  great  coffee  drinkers.  The 
first  thing  in  my  father's  home  when  my  father  and  mother 
got  out  of  bed  was  to  put  on  the  coffee-pot — and  they  got 
out  of  bed  early,  you  may  be  sure  of  that.  They  were  fool- 
ing with  the  coffee  by  four  o'clock  on  the  summer  mornings 
and  by  live  on  the  winter  mornings.  They  would  make  the 
coffee  strong  enough  to  float  an  axe,  and  then  they  would 
drink  their  first  cup  while  they  sat  around  the  hearthstone 
and  while  the  breakfast  was  in  preparation;  then  when 
breakfast  time  came,  they  would  drink  another  cup,  and 
later  in  the  day  they  would  drink  still  other  cups.  My  dear, 
sweet  mother  drank  coffee  three  times  a  day  conscientiously 
as  long  as  she  lived,  and,  if  you  count  this  first  cup  in  the 
morning,  she  drank  coffee  four  times  a  day.  She  did  not 
think  it  hurt  her,  but,  looking  back  upon  it,  after  she  has  for 
many  years  been  in  her  grave,  I  believe  it  was  a  deadly 
curse  to  her.  I  know  that  it  was  poison  to  me  from  the 
time  of  my  childhood,  but  I  did  not  know  it  then.  I  drank 
coffee  along  with  the  rest,  and  then  I  suffered  with  these 
nervous  attacks  so  frightfully  that  I  had  to  take  nearly  all 


114       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

the  medicine  in  my  father's  medical  saddle-bags  to  get  me 
straight  again.  As  I  learned  to  know  more  of  myself  I 
abandoned  coffee  just  as  I  had  abandoned  tobacco,  so  that 
for  years  I  have  not  indulged  in  any  nervous  stimulant  or 
any  narcotic  of  any  kind. 

There  is  another  matter  of  grave  moment  to  every  one 
thus  afflicted,  and  that  is  the  question  of  diet;  and  there  is 
a  companion  question,  that  of  exercise,  which  is  of  supreme 
importance.  Long  ago  I  theoretically  became  a  vegetarian, 
and  now  I  am  practically  one.  I  do  not  eat  a  pound  of  meat 
of  any  and  all  kinds  in  a  year,  and  the  time  is  near  at  hand 
when  I  never  expect  to  touch  meat  of  any  kind  under  any 
circumstances.  Not  only  is  that  true,  but  I  have  learned 
that  the  right  kind  of  physical  exercise,  taken  in  the  right 
way,  is  one  of  the  best  possible  preventives  of  a  recurrence 
of  these  nervous  afflictions.  I  believe  that  if  anyone  so 
afflicted  will  steer  clear  of  tobacco,  coffee  and  meat  and  take 
plenty  of  time  in  which  to  masticate  his  food,  he  will  be  a 
long  way  in  the  direction  of  comfort;  and  moreover,  if  he 
will  take  due  and  diligent  exercise  each  day — walking  is  the 
best  of  all  exercise,  I  think — he  will  find  himself  so  far 
comfortable  that  he  will  not  recognize  in  himself  the  same 
person  that  he  was  before  he  adopted  these  simple  hygienic 
suggestions. 

I  was  a  great  horseback  rider  in  my  boyhood,  and  lived 
out  in  the  open  air  practically  all  day  long.  If  I  were  not 
on  my  horse,  I  was  working  hard  at  farm  labor.  While 
all  of  this  was  true,  this  out-door  physical  exercise  did  not 
serve  to  ward  off  these  recurring  spells  from  which  I  suf- 
fered. I  have  them  less  now  than  ever  before,  but  I  find 
as  I  go  along  that  I  am  a  little  more  susceptible  to  noise  and 
the  discomforts  of  public  functions  than  before.  I  do  not 
know  how  I  will  end  up  in  the  matter,  but  I  am  expecting  the 
time  to  come,  if  I  shall  live  to  be  as  old  as  ninety  or  a 
hundred  years,  that  I  will  have  to  spend  much  of  my  time 


A  GREAT  AFFLICTION  115 

alone.  If  I  do,  I  will  keep  writing  on  this  chronicle,  so 
that  those  who  follow  after  will  have  a  good  time  reading 
what  I  have  said  about  it.  I  know  it  must  be  exceedingly- 
interesting  to  every  reader  to  know  the  meanderings  of  the 
mind  of  a  nervous  man  and  the  distresses  he  has  felt  on 
account  of  his  neurasthenic  diathesis. 

I  have  found  great  benefit  from  water.  I  drink  a  great 
deal  of  water,  and  I  am  a  very  persistent  user  of  water  in 
the  various  kinds  of  bathing.  I  take  a  cold  plunge  bath 
every  morning  of  the  world,  no  matter  how  cold  it  is,  and 
use  water  of  the  temperature  of  the  room  or  of  the  hydrant, 
wherever  I  am.  This  has  been  one  of  the  best  preventives 
of  all  the  other  ills  to  which  flesh  is  heir  that  I  ever  adopted, 
and  I  will  give  you  a  gracious  fact  about  myself,  and  that 
is,  that  while  I  have  suffered  much  with  this  nervous  trouble, 
I  have  escaped  many  of  the  other  troubles  that  afflict  the 
human  race.  I  have  never  had  pneumonia.  I  have  never 
had  malarial  fever.  I  have  nothing  like  tuberculosis  or 
asthma,  and  on  the  whole,  I  am  a  very  healthy  individual. 
Of  course,  if  I  had  not  had.  this  neurasthenic  trouble,  I 
would  have  been  a  perfect  specimen  of  physical  manhood, 
and  so,  after  all,  while  I  have  suffered  much,  I  do  not  com- 
plain of  the  fact,  but  rather  thank  God  that  it  has  been  no 
worse.  I  am  a  good  deal  like  the  old  lady,  concerning  whom 
I  told  a  story  in  my  first  book,  entitled  Courage  and  Com- 
fort, or  Sunday  Morning  Thoughts.  This  old  lady  was 
rather  neurasthenic  and  hysterical  and  she  never  was  willing 
to  confess  that  she  was  better.  One  morning,  however, 
when  she  seemed  to  be  in  unusually  fine  physical  condition, 
one  of  the  neighbor  ladies  came  over  and  said: 

"  Why,  Grandma,  you  must  feel  better  this  morning." 

She  said: 

"  Yes,  I  feel  a  little  better  this  morning,  thank  God !  But 
I  always  know  that  when  I  feel  better  I'm  going  to  feel 
worse.    O  Lordy !  " 


116       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

This  is  characteristic  of  the  neurasthenic,  but  I  have  been 
enabled  by  my  knowledge  of  medicine,  hygiene  and  therapeu- 
tics to  adapt  myself  to  such  conditions  as  I  have  had  to  con- 
front, and  I  am  very  thankful  that  in  many  ways  my  life 
has  been  cast  in  pleasant  places. 

If  at  any  time  I  have  ever  seemed  to  neglect  you,  dear 
reader,  or  to  stay  away  from  your  party,  or  to  be  absent 
from  your  association  or  convention,  or  chamber  of  com- 
merce meeting,  or  to  neglect  you  when  you  have  invited  me 
to  your  dinner,  it  was  not  because  I  did  not  love  you,  but 
rather  because,  knowing  I  had  a  certain  amount  of  work  m 
the  world  to  do,  I  have  had  to  forego  the  pleasure  of  doing 
the  things  you  felt  that  I  ought  to  do  and  looked  for  me 
to  do,  in  order  to  accumulate  enough  nervous  energy  and 
strength  to  do  the  duties  of  the  following  day. 

This  has  been  the  way  I  have  lived.  The  trouble  has 
been  my  shadow  every  day  and  will  follow  me  to  my  grave. 
I  am  glad  that  after  the  breath  leaves  my  body  I  can  have 
one  last  long  sleep. 


XIV 

A  CHAPTER  ON  NERVOUSNESS,  NUISANCES 
AND  NOISE 

THERE  are  many  in  this  world  whose  chief  ambi- 
tion seems  to  be  to  make  others  discontented  and 
unhappy.  Some  of  these  promote  noises.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  firemen  and  engineers  on  our  railway 
trains.  Each  engine  is  equipped  with  a  demoniacal  whistle. 
An  engine  makes  enough  noise  any  way,  when  you  take 
into  account  the  escape  of  the  steam  and  the  other  general 
noise-creating  apparatus  thereunto  belonging,  but  when  you 
add  the  clanging  of  the  bell,  and  the  screeching  of  the 
whistle,  you  have  a  machine  that  is  of  the  underworld.  Of 
course,  in  the  ongoing  of  a  railway  train,  there  is  a  necessity 
for  some  noise.  The  bell  should  be  clanged  at  certain  cross- 
ings, and  at  certain  other  intervals  the  whistle  should  be 
blown,  but  the  noise  that  engineers  and  firemen  make  is  out 
of  all  reason  and  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  noise  they 
should  make.  There  is  just  at  this  time  on  one  of  the  Dallas 
railway  trains,  a  diabolical  fireman  or  engineer  who  pulls 
out  a  freight  train  at  about  5 :  30  in  the  morning.  As  he 
starts  out  of  the  Dallas  station  he  begins  to  blow  his  whistle. 
It  is  a  horrible  whistle.  It  is  one  of  those  whistles  that  has 
in  it  compounded  the  groans,  screeches,  howls  and  screams 
of  the  entire  antediluvian  world.  It  is  frightful  in  its  dis- 
cordant sound,  and  it  is  so  loud  that  I  can  hear  it  as  plainly 
when  the  breeze  is  from  the  South  as  if  it  were  on  my  front 
sidewalk.  Now,  this  brutal  whistle-blower  starts  out  blow- 
ing his  whistle  at  almost  every  turn  of  the  wheels,  and  that 

117 


118       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

screech  goes  on  until  he  is  safely  outside  of  the  corporate 
limits,  and  perhaps  he  keeps  it  up  until  he  is  miles  and  miles 
away. 

I  remember  a  noise  that  used  to  distress  me  much.  I  lived 
for  twelve  years  in  Waco,  and  for  about  five  years  of  that 
time  I  lived  in  South  Waco,  about  a  block  from  Baylor  Uni- 
versity. Dr.  Burleson  was  president.  He  meant  well  in  the 
very  noises  that  he  made,  but  there  is  one  man — I  refer  to 
the  writer  of  these  lines — who  was  caused  to  suffer  more 
agony  and  more  general  discomfort  and  distress  on  account 
of  one  of  Dr.  Burleson's  noise-making  appliances  than  per- 
haps any  other  man  that  ever  lived  in  Waco.  By  some 
means  Dr.  Burleson  possessed  himself  of  an  enormous  bell. 
He  did  not  hang  it  in  the  air,  but  suspended  it  right  close 
to  the  ground.  Every  morning  at  six  o'clock,  rain  or  shine, 
Sunday  and  every  day,  this  bell  tolled  to  wake  up  the  150 
or  175  girls  that  he  had  in  his  boarding  hall.  Now,  living 
in  South  Waco  at  that  time  there  were  perhaps  six  or  seven 
thousand  people,  and  if  one  of  them  could  sleep  through  the 
tolling  of  this  bell,  he  surely  had  a  cast-iron  nervous  system, 
and  all  the  aural  avenues,  including  the  eustachian  tube, 
were  closed.  As  I  have  already  told,  I  am  a  poor  sleeper. 
Sometimes  it  is  far  into  the  night  before  I  can  compose 
myself  to  find  any  sleep  at  all.  Often  it  happens  that  I  do 
not  fall  asleep  till  early  morning.  This  happened  many  times 
when  I  lived  on  Speight  Street  in  Waco,  so  close  to  dear 
Dr.  Burleson's  school.  Just  about  the  time  I  would  then 
be  sound  asleep,  this  bell  would  toll  and  my  chance  for  sleep 
for  that  day  had  reached  its  end. 

Dr.  Burleson  has  long  since  been  in  his  grave.  I  would 
not  say  an  unkind  word  of  the  dead,  nor  would  I  say  an 
unkind  word  of  the  noble  man  if  he  were  alive,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  while  he  never  thought  of  it,  the  tolling  of 
that  bell  every  morning  at  six  o'clock — a  bell  so  loud  that 
its  intonation  sounded  like  the  coming  of  an  earthquake — 


A  CHAPTER  ON  NERVOUSNESS  119 

was  absolutely  against  every  principle  of  righteousness  and 
in  violation  of  every  tenet  of  Christian  ethics.  He  did  not 
mean  it  so.  Of  this  I  am  very  sure.  But  the  fact  remained 
that  for  all  of  the  years  of  his  mortal  existence,  this  abomina- 
tion of  desolation,  standing  where  it  ought  not,  tolled 
alarums  to  the  horror  and  discomfort  of  all  the  nervous 
people  in  the  community,  and  perhaps  to  the  fatal  ending  of 
many  nervous  ailments. 

That  is  one  thing  I  have  against  the  Roman  Catholics. 
In  every  Roman  Catholic  church  in  the  world,  they  begin 
their  morning  by  tolling  a  six  o'clock  bell.  I  roomed  near 
one  of  them  once,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  bell  was  just 
as  harassing  to  my  nerves  as  was  Dr.  Burleson's  bell,  with 
the  exception  that  the  Roman  Catholic  bell  was  not  as  loud 
as  Dr.  Burleson's  bell.  Dr.  Burleson's  bell  was  the  loudest 
I  ever  had  close  to  me,  but  the  Catholic  bells  are  loud  enough 
to  bring  wakefulness  to  the  eyes  of  those  who  suffer  from 
nervousness,  and  to  disturb  the  tranquility  of  many  sufferers 
who  languish  on  beds  of  affliction. 

Nuisances  of  this  sort  should  be  abated  by  law.  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  engineer,  or  any  college  president,  or  any 
Catholic  priest,  or  any  other  functionary  anywhere,  has  the 
right  to  maintain  this  kind  of  nuisance.  It  is  against  the 
peace  and  tranquility  of  the  public  and  in  violation  of  all 
the  high  principles  of  Christian  ethics. 

This  brings  me  to  another  point  on  which  I  have  wanted 
to  speak  for  thirty  years.  It  is  with  regard  to  the  evangelists 
who  promote  six  o'clock  morning  prayer  meetings.  I  be- 
lieve in  prayer.  Profoundly  do  I  reverence  every  man  who 
thus  finds  communion  with  his  God.  We  do  not  pray  half 
enough.  Prayer  is  one  of  the  most  neglected  of  all  Chris- 
tian duties.  But  tKese  six  o'clock  morning  prayer  meetings 
are  as  senseless  as  they  are  unnecessary.  In  a  large  measure, 
they  are  hypocritical.  They  are  advertised  and  promoted 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  forth  a  degree  of  piety  that 


120       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

the  leaders  in  them  do  not  possess.  A  man  can  pray  just 
as  well  after  he  has  arisen  from  a  sound  sleep  in  the  regular 
way  and  had  his  breakfast.  There  is  no  virtue  in  jumping 
out  of  bed  at  five  or  5 :  30  o'clock,  rubbing  one's  eyes, 
hastily  pulling  on  one's  clothes,  and  hurrying  away  to  some 
church  house  to  meet  a  lot  of  misguided  fanatics  who  think 
that  by  disturbing  their  neighbors,  cutting  off  their  natural 
supply  of  sleep,  and  hurrying  together  at  six  o'clock,  they 
can  thereby  promote  righteousness.  In  these  evangelistic 
efforts  many  of  these  very  same  people  do  not  get  to  bed 
until  midnight,  and  here  they  are  jumping  up  at  five  in  the 
morning  and  scurrying  away  to  meet  other  idiots  of  the  same 
kind  in  a  useless  prayer  meeting.  I  have  attended  but  one  of 
this  sort  and  that  was  by  accident.  It  was  when  the  Texas 
Baptist  Sunday  School  Convention  met  many  years  ago  at 
Brenham.  The  train  was  quite  late  and  we  did  not  get  to 
Brenham  until  just  about  5  130  o'clock.  We  were  met  by 
some  brethren  and  advised  that  a  six  o'clock  prayer  meeting 
was  to  be  held  soon  at  one  of  the  nearby  churches.  We  had 
nothing  else  to  do,  and  so  I  followed  the  brethren  in.  The 
breakfast  hour  had  not  yet  come,  so  it  was  no  loss  of  time 
to  go  in  and  witness  one  of  these  six  o'clock  morning  per- 
formances. I  was  not  in  very  much  of  a  praying  mood.  I 
had  been  on  the  train  all  night,  and  getting  up  at  5 :  30  is 
not  exactly  in  my  line.  However,  I  helped  them  sing  and 
I  helped  them  pray,  but  they  were  a  sleepy,  languid  looking 
bunch,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  ten  per  cent  of  the  men 
and  women  there  really  were  in  earnest  in  coming  to  the 
prayer  nleeting.  They  came  because  a  cranky  evangelist  ha3 
advertised  the  prayer  meeting  and  they  thought  that  in  order 
to  be  in  line  with  his  plans,  they  had  to  shake  themselves 
loose  from  the  best  end  of  a  good  night's  sleep  and  con- 
gregate with  him  to  make  a  show  of  themselves  in  this  kind 
of  religious  observance.  I  class  this  along  with  the  ringing 
of  the  six  o'clock  Catholic  bell  and  all  such  heathen  sounds. 


A  CHAPTER  ON  NERVOUSNESS  121 

Then,  there  are  the  steam  whistles  of  factories,  planing 
mills,  flouring  mills  and  enterprises  of  this  sort.  The  first 
year  I  came  to  Dallas,  I  lived  at  what  was  then  469  South 
Ervay  Street.  This  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Dallas 
cotton  mills.  These  mills  employed  some  300  hands,  and 
in  order,  as  the  management  thought,  to  get  these  people  out 
of  bed  and  into  the  factory  on  time,  they  had  to  arouse 
15,000  people  every  morning  by  blowing  their  abominable 
whistle  at  five  o'clock.  They  are  doing  that  today.  One 
morning  not  long  ago,  when  I  was  struggling  to  make  even 
with  the  loss  of  a  very  large  part  of  the  night,  I  was  aroused 
by  this  same  raucous  noise,  and  I  recognized  it.  The  wind 
was  blowing  exactly  from  that  location,  and  although,  on  a 
straight  line,  it  is  over  four  miles  from  where  I  now  live, 
this  whistle  woke  me  up  and  spoiled  the  only  chance  I  had 
for  enough  sleep  with  which  to  perform  next  day  a  reason- 
able day's  work.  Then  there  are  others  of  these  factories 
that  begin  their  noises  at  six  o'clock,  then  on  to  6 :  30,  then 
to  seven,  and  finally  the  7 :  30  whistles  are  the  crowning 
aborninations  of  them  all. 

You  may  be  a  good  sleeper.  You  may  be  able  to  turn  in 
at  ten  or  eleven  o'clock  and  sleep  straight  through  till  six 
or  seven  without  turning  over,  and  feel  absolutely  refreshed 
and  ready  for  the  day's  work.  You  are  an  exception.  Many 
are  poor  sleepers,  particularly  in  large  cities  where  the  nerve- 
tension  is  great,  and  where  life  is  strenuous.  There  are 
many  occupations  that  demand  early  rising,  but  I  never  could 
understand,  and  do  not  understand  now,  why  a  civilized 
community  will  allow  outrages  of  this  kind  to  be  perpetrated 
from  year  to  year  without  complaint  or  comment. 

If  there  were  any  sense  in  all  of  this,  it  would  be  a  dif- 
ferent matter,  but  the  great  store-keepers  do  not  blow 
whistles  to  bring  their  men  and  women  to  the  store  at  eigHt 
o'clock.  There  are  many  large  department  stores,  and  many 
other  large  shops  and  factories,  that  do  not  find  it  necessary 


122       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

to  indulge  in  this  kind  of  indecorous  conduct  in  order  to 
bring  their  operatives  to  their  places  on  time.  There  are 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  business  offices  here  and  there, 
in  which  the  stenographers,  book-keepers,  clerks  and  other 
employes  have  regular  hours  of  work,  and  yet  none  of  these 
find  it  necessary  to  disturb  a  whole  city  in  order  to  bring 
themselves  to  their  work  on  time. 

One  of  our  latter  day  devices  for  making  night  hideous 
is  the  motorcycle.  I  do  not  know  of  anything  more  out- 
rageously bad  than  the  explosions  of  a  gasoline  engine. 
Automobiles  have  mufflers,  but  the  average  motorcycle  has 
no  muffler,  and  the  average  rider  of  a  motorcycle  has  neither 
sense  nor  consciencee.  It  is  no  wonder  that  now  and  then, 
when  one  of  these  motorcycle  operators  gets  his  head  broken, 
there  is  scant  sympathy  for  him.  It  is  because  he  has  no 
sort  of  consideration  for  the  public,  and  at  any  and  all  hours 
of  the  night  rides  through  the  streets  making  these  uncouth 
and  sleep-destroying  noises. 

I  heard  a  story  of  an  old  country  gentleman  whose  mules 
got  terribly  frightened  at  a  passing  automobile.  Finally, 
with  the  assistance  of  the  automobile  man  and  his  gentleness 
of  demeanor,  he  was  enabled  to  pass  the  mules,  and  the 
farmer  drove  on.  He  had  not  been  going  forward  very 
long  until,  coming  down  the  road,  passing  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, there  raced  one  of  these  up-to-date,  noise-producing 
motorcycles.  His  mules  were  worse  scared  at  that  than 
they  were  at  the  automobile.  He  jumped  out,  grabbed  the 
bridle  of  the  near  mule,  with  his  wife  grabbing  the  bridle  of 
the  off  mule,  and  the  motorcycle  shot  by  like  a  meteor.  He 
looked  at  it  as  it  flashed  by  and  said : 

"  Well,  I  didn't  know  that  blamed  automobile  had  a  colt" 

These  and  similar  devices  for  the  creation  of  noise  are 
shortening  human  life,  are  causing  disease,  and  are  in  every 
way  inimical  to  public  health  and  comfort.  In  every  city 
there  should  be  a  Commissioner  of  Tranquility.    He  is  more 


A  CHAPTER  ON  NERVOUSNESS  123 

important  than  the  Street  Commissioner  or  the  Police  Com- 
missioner. If  we  would  join  hands  in  an  effort  to  abate 
nuisances  of  this  kind,  life  would  be  more  bearable,  and 
many  a  man  who  is  now  on  the  verge  of  insanity  or  the 
grave,  would  be  saved. 

I  realize  that  even  in  country  places  there  is  not  absolute 
freedom  from  noise.  There  are  animals  out  there  and  some 
of  these  animals  make  noises.  The  worst  one  of  all  is  the 
donkey.  He  will  bray  in  spite  of  all  creation.  He  brays  at 
about  the  same  time  the  city  man  begins  to  bray,  and  the 
man  who  makes  the  noise  in  the  city  is  next  of  kin  to  the 
donkey  that  makes  the  noise  in  the  country.  It  is  somewhat 
different  in  the  country,  any  way,  because  the  farmers  are 
usually  out  of  bed  and  at  work  much  earlier  than  the  town 
people,  but  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  town  donkey,  who 
ought  to  have  more  sense,  while  there  is  plenty  of  excuse  for 
the  country  donkey  that  has  been  raised  without  such  train- 
ing as  would  cause  him  to  abate  his  braying  and  let  the  people 
sleep. 

I  hope  some  time  that  our  up-to-date  civilization  will  take 
hold  of  this  question  of  unnecessary  noise  with  a  vigorous 
hand.  Much  can  be  done,  but  nothing,  so  far  as  I  know, 
ever  has  been  done.  Once  in  a  while,  some  agitation  is  made 
in  some  city  concerning  the  matter,  but  it  usually  dies  in 
embryo,  and  the  strident  noises  of  the  town  go  on.  In  some 
of  our  cities  the  noises  are  so  multitudinous  that  they  drown 
themselves,  and  subside  into  a  thick  and  constant  roar  that 
lasts  all  night.  There  is  some  relief  in  this,  as  in  the  count- 
less noises  there  is  no  noise  at  all,  but  a  monotony  like  unto 
the  falling  of  rain  on  the  roof,  which  may  promote  sleep 
instead  of  driving  it  away. 

There  are  men  everywhere  who  are  thoughtless  concern- 
ing the  comfort  of  others.  The  tobacco  smoker  is  just  as 
thoughtless  as  the  noise-maker.  He  has  a  notion  that  the 
fumes  of  his  miserable  pipe  or  poisonous  cigar  are  as  de- 


124       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

lightful  to  the  sensitive  olfactory  nerves  of  his  neighbors  and 
friends  as  they  are  to  him.  Now  and  then  some  man  of 
this  kind  will  take  out  his  match  and  his  cigar  and  look 
around  and  ask  if  smoke  is  offensive.  Smoke  is  offensive 
to  those  who  have  not  been  immunized  by  living  in  the  house 
with  some  tobacco-user.  In  many  instances  it  is  very 
offensive,  even  to  these.  There  are  thousands  of  delicate 
women  who  are  literally  being  smoked  into  their  graves  by 
thoughless,  tobacco-smoking  husbands.  Some  are  the  sub- 
jects of  many  and  grievous  ailments,  brought  upon  them  by 
the  nicotine  poison  communicated  to  them  by  their  husbands. 
It  is  a  shame !  It  is  not  popular  to  say  this,  but  I  am  not 
writing  this  book  for  popularity  .  I  don't  care  whether  any- 
body  buys  it  or  not.  I  am  not  dependent  upon  its  sale  for 
my  living,  and  am  going  to  say  for  once  just  what  I  think 
if  the  world  comes  to  an  end  before  the  bookbinder  gets 
the  jackets  on  the  first  thousand  copies. 

Another  thing  about  tobacco  smokers  is  that  they  seem 
to  delight  in  getting  into  elevators  or  into  close  compart- 
ments, or  into  small  rooms,  and  infecting  every  cubic  inch 
of  decent  fresh  air  with  the  fumes  from  their  poison-dis- 
seminating cigars  and  pipes.  It  is  horrible !  It  only  shows 
that  men  who  are  otherwise  kind  and  thoughtful  can  be  so 
far  hardened  by  a  grievous  habit  that  they  will  be  entirely 
indifferent,  both  to  the  health  and  the  comfort  of  their 
friends  and  neighbors. 

I  hope  that  this  will  be  read  by  many  tobacco  smokers. 
They  are  killing  themselves  smoking,  but  that  is  not  of  as 
much  consequence  as  the  corollary  fact  that  they  are  killing 
their  friends  and  neighbors,  as  well  as. members  of  their 
own  families.  It  is  pitiful  that  m^en  will  not  abstain  from 
hurtful  indulgences  of  this  sort,  but  if  they  will  not,  they 
surely  should  have  good  breeding  enough  to  go  out  and 
smoke  somewhere  by  themselves  rather  than  infect  an  entire 
room  or  home  with  their  toxines.    I  hate  tobacco  smoke  with 


A  CHAPTER  ON  NERVOUSNESS  125 

every  fibre  of  my  being.  I  do  not  like  to  smell  it.  I  do  not  like 
to  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  man  that  smokes,  and  I 
abominate  that  callousness  that  tobacco  smokers  accumulate 
in  their  thoughtless  indulgence  in  this  vice. 

You  may  ask  me  if  I  think  tobacco  smoking  is  a  sin.  Yes. 
Anything  is  a  sin  that  carries  with  it  the  disaster  that  follows 
in  the  wake  of  tobacco  using,  and  while  it  is  not  such  a  sin 
as  robbing  a  bank  or  committing  a  murder,  it  is,  in  a  sense, 
the  commission  of  suicide,  because  no  man  who  is  a  per- 
sistent user  of  tobacco  can  possibly  fill  out  the  full  measure 
of  his  life. 

Now  I  have  said  what  I  think  about  tobacco  smoking; 
and  while  tobacco  chewing  does  not  bring  as  much  discom- 
fort to  the  public  as  tobacco  smoking,  it  is  none  the  less 
a  vile  habit  and  should  be  abandoned.  My  chief  repugnance, 
however,  is  to  tobacco  smoking.  A  man  may  chew  and 
chew  and,  as  Dr.  Burleson  would  say,  may  "  spit  in  his 
*  boosom ' "  or  swallow  his  tobacco  juice,  while  a  tobacco 
smoker  poisons  the  air,  and  at  times  so  many  tobacco  smok- 
ers have  been  on  the  street  where  I  have  been  walking  that 
the  entire  atmosphere  of  the  city  has  been  impregnated  with 
their  diabolical  poison. 

I  have  stayed  away  from  many  a  banquet  and  other  pub- 
lic meeting  because  of  the  300  to  1000  cigars  I  would  have 
been  forced  to  smoke  had  I  attended. 


XV 

SOME  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  NERVOUS  PEOPLE 

NO  nervous  man  is  quite  so  nervous  as  he  thinks  he  is. 
This  is  exactly  the  point  at  which  Christian  Science, 
so-called,  scores.  Christian  Science  is  neither  Chris- 
tian nor  scientific.  It  has  never  cured  a  man  that  was 
really  sick  and  never  will,  but  it  does  steady  the  nerves  of 
nervous  people,  and  particularly  hysterical  women,  and  in 
this  way,  through  the  law  of  suggestion,  it  helps  them  to 
believe  that  they  are  not  sick.  Nervousness,  while  distress- 
ing, is  not  itself  an  organic  ailment.  One  of  the  most  nervous 
women  I  knew  in  my  yourth  was  an  old  maid  that  had  spells 
of  hysteria  in  which  she  and  her  friends  all  thought  she 
was  going  to  die.  I  was  studying  medicine.  She  was  one 
of  my  first  patients.  I  helped  her  through  many  a  spell,  and 
even  with  my  knowledge  of  medicine,  which  was  growing 
all  the  time,  I  was  fearful  lest  she  should  die  in  one  of  these 
attacks,  but  she  lived  to  be  more  than  eighty  years  of  age. 

Nervousness  rarely  kills.  There  may  be  an  entire  collapse 
of  the  nervous  system  that  will  bring  a  speedy  dissolution, 
but  the  rule  is  that  the  nervous  man,  while  racked  with  dis- 
tress, moves  on  through  life,  possibly  outliving  the  more 
vigorous  man,  and  distancing  the  athlete  who,  through  disuse 
of  the  lobes  of  his  lungs,  dies  of  tuberculosis,  while  the 
neurasthenic  is  still  living  on  his  small  quota  of  sleep,  and 
doing  comparatively  well. 

The  thing  for  a  nervous  man  or  woman  is  to  forget  about 
it.  I  have  been  unable  to  do  this,  but  here  I  am,  as  I  write 
this  chronicle,  in  my  55th  year,  weighing  220  pounds,  in 

126 


FOR  NERVOUS  PEOPLE  127 

perfect  health  otherwise,  able  to  do  a  strong  man's  full  day's 
work  at  my  regular  occupation,  and  in  many  ways  entirely 
comfortable,  but  I  have  been  happily  fortunate  in  this,  that 
I  have  been  inclined  to  be  fleshy  and  am  now  what  you  would 
call  a  fat  man.  It  is  unusual  for  a  fat  man  to  be  nervous. 
Many  of  the  fleshy  men  are  phlegmatic,  but  in  my  case  I 
have  had  the  combination  of  high  nervous  tension  and  a 
tendency  to  become  stout.  I  am  glad  this  is  so.  It  is  better 
if  you  can  forget  about  your  nervousness,  forget  about  the 
noises,  forget  about  the  many  distressing  things  in  lile, 
compose  yourself,  and  find  tranquility  and  rest,  but  this  is 
not  always  possible,  and  since  it  is  not  always  possible,  there 
are  some  simple  suggestions  that  I  leave  with  you  here  that 
may  be  helpful  to  you. 

Avoid  all  nervous  stimulants.  Tobacco,  coffee,  tea  and 
all  stimulants  of  every  kind,  the  nervous  man  should  avoid 
as  he  would  the  grip  of  the  devil.  There  is  absolutely  no  hope 
for  a  nervous  man  if  he  habituates  himself  to  the  use  of 
these  nerve-racking  beverages,  or  forms  the  habit  of  taking 
opiates  or  sleep-producing  drugs  of  any  kind.  The  best 
thing  for  a  nervous  man  is  the  neutral  bath,  taken  at  from 
9^  to  983^  degrees  and  in  which  the  patient  remains  for 
from  twenty  minutes  to  two  hours,  depending  upon  the 
gravity  of  the  trouble  and  the  particular  symptoms  in  his 
case.  I  have  found  the  neutral  bath  to  be  the  greatest  relief 
I  have  ever  had.  It  should  be  taken  at  night,  and  after  the 
bath  is  over,  the  patient  should  be  gently  rubbed  dry  with 
a  sheet  rather  than  a  rough  towel,  and  after  composing 
the  nerves,  should  retire. 

Every  nervous  man  should  be  very  careful  about  his  diet. 
He  should  avoid  heavy  foods  of  all  kinds,  and  take  only 
those  that  he  knows  are  sure  to  agree  with  him.  What  is 
called  the  heavy  protein  diet  should  be  avoided.  The  greatest 
authority  on  dietetics  in  the  western  world  is  Dr.  J.  H. 
Kellogg,  of  Battle  Creek,  Michigan.     He  lives  upon  the 


128       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

lowest  protein  diet  he  can  get.  This  naturally  drives  him 
to  a  diet  of  fruits,  grains  and  nuts,  as  they  are  low  in 
protein.  Vegetables,  as  a  rule,  except  the  legumes  (legumes 
"is  beans"),  are  low  in  protein.  Bread  is  rather  high  in 
protein  and  so  are  eggs.  The  whites  of  eggs  are  almost  pure 
protein,  and  a  diet  of  eggs  is  the  very  worst  thing  a  nervous 
man  can  eat,  unless  it  happens  that  he  is  what  is  called  a 
hyperpeptic  instead  of  a  hypopeptic. 

The  neurasthenic  should  chew  his  food.  Thorough  mas- 
tication insures  prompt  assimilation  and  digestion,  and  while 
the  nervous  man  may  not  be  aware  of  the  fact,  there  is  a 
most  vital  connection  between  his  digestion  and  his  nervous- 
ness. The  pneumogastric  plexus  is  called  the  abdominal 
brain.  It  has  a  very  intimate  connection  with  all  the  nerve 
centers,  and  if  a  man's  digestion  is  out  of  order,  that  of 
itself  will  bring  him  a  sleepless  night.  Therefore  it  is  of 
exceeding  importance  that  the  nervous  man  should  carefully 
choose  his  diet,  and  thoroughly  masticate  his  food.  He  shoud 
avoid  over-eating.  Most  of  us  eat  twice  what  we  should 
eat,  and  do  not  chew  one- fourth  as  much  as  we  should  chew. 
If  the  average  man  were  to  divide  his  food  by  two  and  mul- 
tiply his  mastication  by  four,  he  would  find  his  nerves 
stronger  and  his  general  health  improved. 

I  am  a  thorough  convert  to  vegetarianism.  While  I  st3i 
nibble  at  meat  to  a  limited  extent,  I  am  thoroughly  convinced 
that  meat  foods  of  all  kinds  should  be  tabooed.  I  do  not 
believe,  to  begin  with,  that  we  should  kill  our  friends,  tKe 
lower  animals,  in  order  to  eat  them,  nor  do  I  believe  that 
a  meat  diet  is  wholesome  or  necessary.  We  can  procure  aH 
of  the  food  elements  by  securing  the  right  kinds  of  fruits 
and  vegetables,  and  we  do  not  need  meat  in  order  to  fill 
out  a  perfect  bill  of  fare.  The  fact  is  that  many  of  the 
ailments  to  which  flesh  is  heir  are  caused  by  a  meat  diet. 
This  is  particularly  true  in  the  neuroses. 

I  close  this  chapter  by  repeating  what  was  said  at  the 


FOR  NERVOUS  PEOPLE  129 

outset — I  had  some  words  to  say  in  my  own  way.  I  have 
now  said  them,  and  I  do  not  regret  a  word  I  have  said.  If 
they  help  anybody,  I  shall  be  glad,  but  in  the  meantime  I  beg 
to  assure  the  reader  that  the  writing  of  these  chapters  has 
greatly  helped  me.  The  sentiments  I  have  expressed  have 
been  pent  up  in  my  system  for  nearly  fifty  years,  and  now 
that  I  am  entirely  relieved,  I  trust  you  will  rejoice  with  me. 
And  just  think!  To  a  most  interesting  autobiography  I 
have  added  a  medical  college,  a  sanitarium,  a  diet  kitchen, 
and  a  cooking  school,  all  for  the  ridiculously  low  price  of  a 
copy  of  this  chronicle ! 


XVI 
THE  STORY  OF  A  MOB 

THE  SPRING  of  1874  is  to  me  a  most  memorable 
one,  because  it  marked  an  era  in  which  for  the  first 
time  I  became  the  owner  of  some  much  needed 
books.  I  already  owned  some  and  there  were  many  in  my 
father's  library,  but  I  wanted  others  and  craved  that  these 
others  should  be  my  very  own.  These  books  which  I  bought 
were  A  United  States  Dispensatory,  Combe's  Phrenology, 
Buck's  Theological  Dictionary,  a  Latin  grammar,  and  a 
compilation  of  prose  and  poetic  gems  called  Golden 
Sheaves.  I  bought  them  from  the  Scoby  boys  with  "  quirts  " 
that  I  made  with  my  own  hands.  A  "  quirt "  is  a  short, 
hand-made  riding  whip,  with  a  wooden  or  an  iron  handle 
incased  in  rawhide,  and  is  itself  plaited  from  strands  of 
rawhide  which  are  of  a  piece  with  that  which  covers  the 
handle.  Its  name  is  from  the  Spanish  quarta.  It  is  used 
extensively  by  the  cowboys  and  rancheros,  who  were  its 
inventors.  The  "  quirt "  has  its  uses  and  abuses.  The 
"  loaded,"  or  iron  handled  "quirt,"  is  a  dangerous  weapon, 
and  is  used  by  the  cowboy  to  fell  an  unruly  caballo,  or  to 
brain  a  foe.  In  1874  I  was  a  cowboy,  and  on  rainy  days 
would  turn  my  hand  to  making  "quirts,"  which  were  current 
in  many  a  cowboy  trade. 

The  Scoby  boys  had  a  good  reason  for  trading  oflF  their 
books.  When  they  were  almost  too  small  to  take  cognizance 
of  life  and  its  stern  realities,  and  while  yet  they  lived  upon 
a  Massachusetts  farm,  their  mother  died  and  left  them  and 
their  broken-hearted  sire  alone.    Their  father  was  a  benig- 

130 


THE  STORY  OF  A  MOB  131 

nant  Christian  gentleman,  and  when  his  sweet  wife  died,  Ee 
answered  what  to  him  was  the  call  of  God  and  came  South 
to  spend  the  remnant  of  his  days  in  helping  an  ignorant 
and  needy  race.  He  sold  his  farm,  and  casting  one  long, 
last  loving  look  at  the  old  New  England  hills,  he  came  to 
this  new  and  as  yet  unknown  and  undeveloped  State  of  Tex- 
as to  teach  a  Negro  school.  To  him  his  mission  was  as  noble 
as  was  the  mission  of  David  Livingstone,  who  gave  his  long, 
eventful  life  to  Africa,  and  died  at  Ilala  on  his  knees. 

When  old  man  Scoby  came  to  Texas,  he  built  a  little  two- 
room  log  cabin  out  in  a  remote  corner  of  Bastrop  County. 
I  have  passed  his  humble  cottage  many  a  time  as  I  hunted 
cattle  in  those  .virgin  woods.  Gathered  there  each  day,  for 
free  tuition,  were  a  score  or  more  of  little  Negro  boys  and 
girls,  and  no  teacher  ever  worked  more  earnestly  to  impart 
knowledge  to  the  young  than  this  man  did.  The  old 
teacher  was  exclusive  and  retired.  He  had  no  friends  except 
the  Negroes,  and  here  and  there  a  solitary  Christian  man, 
who  sympathized  with  his  efforts  to  do  good,  but  who 
scarcely  dared  to  claim  him  as  a  friend. 

Old  man  Scoby  came  to  Texas  in  the  spring  of  1873.  In 
May,  1874,  he  had  been  teaching  the  little  Negro  school 
about  a  year.  That  was  election  year.  In  the  following 
November,  State  and  County  officers  were  to  be  chosen.  Bas- 
trop County  in  that  day  had  many  Negro  voters.  How  the 
story  started,  I  do  not  know ;  nobody  knows ;  but  the  tidings 
spread  abroad  that  old  man  Scoby  was  doing  all  he  could 
to  carry  Bastrop  County  for  the  "Radicals"  with  the  Negro 
vote.  I  did  not  believe  the  story  then,  and  do  not  now.  He 
was  never  off  his  little  place,  and  there  was  no  opportunity 
for  political  intrigue.  That  did  not  stop  the  evil  tale.  It 
took  wings — the  wings  of  demons — and  went  forth. 

So  great  was  the  prejudice  engendered  that  the  tiger  was 
unchained — that  ferocious  tiger  that  has  crimsoned  our  land 
with  blood  and  caused  the  blush  of  shame  to  mantle  every 


132       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

good  man's  cheek.    Victor  Hugo  says  there  is  an  untamed 
tiger  in  every  man. 

The  mob  was  formed.  It  started  for  the  old  man's  cabin 
home.  It  started  in  the  shrouding  darkness  of  a  moonless 
night,  and  gathered  force  and  frenzy  as  it  went.  Before  the 
final  resolution  to  commit  the  murder  had  been  formed,  the 
company  became  wild  with  liquor  at  a  wayside  saloon.  It 
was  thus  the  twin  devils  went  forth  together  in  their  march 
of  death.  And  let  it  be  known  everywhere  that  the  Southern 
mob  and  Southern  bar-room  are  as  much  akin  as  were  the 
twins  of  Siam.  I  have  never  known  of  a  sober  mob.  First 
comes  the  hell-born  thirst  for  human  blood,  and  after  that 
the  insatiate  thirst  for  rum.  Spell  the  word  "  murder  ^ 
backward  and  you  have  red-rum!  Spell  red-rum  in  any 
way,  and  you  have  murder! 

On  that  moonless  night  in  May,  the  mob  swept  on.  Past 
waving  fields  and  flowery  vales ;  past  home-like  cottages  that 
nestled  in  the  glen ;  past  purling  streams,  where  gentle  mur- 
murs spoke  of  God,  and  warned  the  murderers  against  their 
purposed  crime ;  past  sleeping  herds  which,  weary  with  long 
browsing  in  the  luscious  grass,  had  lain  them  down  to  rest. 
At  last  the  mob,  now  hushed  and  silent,  but  still  intent  upon 
their  deed  of  blood,  drew  near  the  little  cottage  gate.  All 
was  still.  The  old  school  teacher  slept  as  sweetly  as  he 
did  when  as  a  little  boy  he  lay  upon  the  trundle  bed.  The 
mob  "  halloed,"  and  the  old  man,  thinking  some  belated  cow- 
boy had  lost  his  way,  sprang  to  the  door  and  out  into  the 
yard,  where,  with  a  Christian  welcome  in  his  heart  and 
on  his  lips,  he  was  shot  to  death. 

There  in  a  Christian  land,  hard  by  the  country  church, 
where  preachers  talked  of  Heaven  and  of  God,  the  bloody 
deed  was  done. 

Old  man  Scoby  was  shot  because  he  taught  a  Negro  school. 
It  was  murder — bloody,  ghastly,  cruel  murder! 


THE  STORY  OF  A  MOB  133 

Some  there  are  who  palHate  such  deeds,  because  they  are 
committed  in  our  native  land.    It  makes  me  hate  them  morel 

Kind  neighbors  came  next  day  and  buried  old  man  Scoby 
out  in  his  little  farm.  His  bones  rest  there  today,  unless 
some  new  settler  has  plowed  them  up  and  thus  scattered 
them  afar.  Full  many  a  day,  when  as  a  cowboy  I  was  round- 
ing up  the  herd,  or  searching  for  the  stray  cows  and  steers, 
I  have  seen  his  lonely  grave,  covered  with  long  spring  grass, 
with  here  and  there  a  flower.  His  murderers  were  never 
known,  and — I  blush  to  tell  this  truth — no  effort  was  ever 
made  to  find  them  out.  The  two  boys  sold  off  the  books 
and  furniture,  almost  gave  away  the  little  farm,  and  went 
their  way,  I  know  not  where. 


XVII 
CLOSING  SCENES  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY 

1DID  go  down  to  the  party  at  Smithville  on  Christmas 
night  of  1875.  The  party  was  at  Aaron  Burleson's 
and  he  played  the  fiddle.  He  was  one  of  the  hand- 
somest men  I  have  ever  known.  He  was  about  5  feet  11 
inches  tall,  was  well  set  up,  weighed  200  pounds  and  did  not 
seem  to  have  a  pound  of  surplus  flesh.  He  wore  a  long 
brown  beard  and  was  a  regular  Adonis  in  looks.  Whiskey 
was  his  ruin.  On  this  particular  night,  he  was  sober. 
Although  Christmas  was  near  at  hand,  he  was  at  his  own 
house,  and  while  he  had  imbibed  a  drink  or  two  of  liquor, 
he  was  not  drunk.  He  was  a  magnificent  fiddler,  and  the 
dance  was  one  of  the  most  entertaining  that  I  ever  attended. 
But  Sallie  wasn't  there!  I  was  lonely  and  heartsick  on 
account  of  her  absence.  I  waited  and  waited  and  time 
passed  and  passed  and  passed.  Artemus  Ward  says  it's  a 
way  time  has.  Seven  o'clock  came,  eight  o'clock  came,  nine 
o'clock  came,  ten  o'clock  came  and  then  I  despaired.  But  1 
was  at  the  dance,  I  knew  some  of  the  Smithville  boys,  and 
they  had  already  begun  to  introduce  me  to  the  Smithville 
girls.  I  was  never  the  man  to  stand  around  and  mope  on 
account  of  a  disappointment. 

The  test  of  manhood  is  that  the  man  who  is  overborne 
by  a  great  sorrow  or  disappointment  stands  erect  upon  his 
feet  and  faces  his  difficulty  with  optimistic  courage. 

Sallie  was  not  the  only  girl  in  Bastrop  County,  but  I 
thought  so  at  the  time.  There  were  many  handsome  lasses 
at  this  dance,  and  it  was  not  long  before  I  was  absorbed  in 

134 


CLOSING  SCENES  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY  135 

the  mazes  of  "  Balance  all,"  "  Swing  corners,"  and  "All 
promenade."  We  danced  all  night.  At  sun-up  I  joined  the 
Williams  boys,  and  we  went  to  the  home  of  a  neighbor  of 
theirs  and  had  our  breakfast.  Next  day  I  felt  very  much 
the  worse  for  wear.  It  was  Christmas  day  and  Saturday. 
We  had  ridden  across  the  country  about  20  miles  the  evening 
before,  and  after  the  all  night  dance  we  were  practically 
"  all  in." 

But  I  had  not  yet  seen  Sallie.  After  breakfast  I  saddled 
"  Old  Ball,"  who  had  enjoyed  a  good  night's  rest  and  some 
splendid  feed,  and  turned  his  head  toward  Alum  Creek.  The 
Colorado  River  was  at  that  time  at  a  low  winter  stage,  and 
I  had  no  trouble  in  fording  it  at  the  Smithville  ford.  Alum 
Creek  was  five  miles  on  across  the  river,  but  the  Yarbroughs 
lived  between  the  Alum  Creek  postoffice  and  Smithville. 
It  was  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  I  reached  the  Yar- 
brough  home.  It  was  a  typical  South  Texas  tenant  house. 
Yarbrough  was  a  renter.  He  was  rich  in  optimism  and  dogs. 
The  first  thing  that  met  me  was  the  largest  of  his  eight  dogs. 
You  could  always  measure  the  financial  condition  of  the 
average  South  Texas  tenant  by  the  number  of  his  dogs.  He 
was  poor  in  exact  ratio  to  their  number. 

Yarbrough  was  a  kind  hearted  man.  The  tenant  house 
was  about  such  a  house  as  George  Galloway  lived  in.  It  had 
two  rooms,  the  larger  one  being  built  of  logs,  and  chinked  in 
the  regular  way.  It  had  a  stick  and  clay  chimney,  and  on  the 
side  a  shed  room,  built  of  rawhide  lumber.  It  had  a  real 
plank  floor,  while  George  Galloway's  house  had  a  puncheon 
floor.  There  was  a  large  open  fireplace  in  the  big  room, 
which  served  for  reception  hall,  parlor,  dining  room  and 
bed  room.  The  shed  room  was  used  for  a  bed  room  and 
kitchen. 

It  was  not  long  before  I  was  on  the  best  of  terms  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Yarbrough.  Sallie  had  told  them  about  me, 
and  they  expected  me.    They  told  me  that  Sallie  had  gone 


136       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

the  night  before  to  visit  her  sister  and  brother-in-law  some 
three  miles  beyond  Alum  Creek  postoffice.  She  had  been 
disappointed  in  the  escort  who  was  to  take  her  to  the  Smith- 
ville  dance,  and  had  left  many  regrets  for  me. 

I  didn't  tarry  long  at  the  Yarbrough  home.  I  was  on 
the  hunt  for  Sallie,  and  after  Sallie  I  went.  I  hastened  to 
the  Alum  Creek  postoffice,  and  by  the  time  I  had  reached 
there,  it  was  the  middle  of  the  afternoon.  I  had  paused 
long  enough  at  the  Yarbrough  home  to  get  my  dinner,  which 
was  served  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  but  I  was  not  hungry. 
The  only  purpose  in  my  heart  was  to  find  Sallie. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  my  quest  was  rewarded.  She,  witR 
her  little  brother  behind  her  on  the  pony,  came  down  the 
road  by  the  Alum  Creek  store,  where  I  had  posted  myself, 
and  it  was  there  that  I  greeted  her.  She  was  a  dream  of 
radiant  loveliness,  and  all  my  impressions  of  her  grace  and 
beauty  were  more  than  confirmed.  I  did  not  like  that  little 
boy.  He  was  a  good  little  boy,  but  at  that  particular  time 
I  wanted  to  talk  to  Sallie,  and  I  did  not  want  to  talk  to 
Sallie's  little  brother.  The  little  brother  equation  has  been 
in  the  way  of  many  a  lovesick  swain.  As  we  neared  the 
Yarbrough  home,  Sallie  remembered  that  the  litttle  brother 
had  to  round  up  the  cows.  She  heard  the  cow  bell  ringing 
about  a  half  mile  off  to  our  right.  At  her  bidding,  the  little 
boy  bounced  off  the  pony  and  swiftly  made  his  way  to  where 
the  cows  were  browsing  on  the  nutritious  winter  grass. 

Sallie  and  I  were  alone.  I  was  much  embarrassed.  She 
was  not.  When  a  boy  is  really  in  love,  the  girl  keeps  her 
equilibrium,  and  this  adds  to  his  embarrassment.  She  began 
to  talk  about  the  dance  at  Aaron  Burleson's,  Hallmark's 
Prairie,  and  the  weather,  and  about  what  kind  of  Christmas 
I  had  enjoyed  before  I  came  down,  and  everything  on  earth 
except  our  love  affair. 

It  is  queer  the  way  these  girls  act.  They  pretend  they 
do  not  care  a  penny  for  a  fellow,  and  yet  all  the  time  it  may 


CLOSING  SCENES  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY  137 

be  they  are  holding  him  sacredly  in  their  hearts.  I  told  Sallie 
that  I  had  come  down  to  see  her,  and  that  I  did  not  particu- 
larly care  what  kind  of  weather  we  were  having,  or  were  to 
have ;  that  my  mission  was  solely  one  in  which  she  was  the 
center  and  circumferencce,  and  that  I  hoped  she  would  give 
me  opportunity  that  night  to  go  over  all  our  matters  together. 

We  rode  on  home  together,  and  as  we  went,  I  held 
her  hand.  I  never  shall  forget  the  description  that  the 
author  of  Dorothy  Vernon  gives  of  Madge  Stanley's  hands. 
Madge  Stanley  was  blind.  She  was,  however,  a  most  lovely 
girl  and  the  author  of  Dorothy  Vernon  details  the  beauty 
of  her  hands  in  a  most  charming  way.  I  will  not  pause  to 
enlarge  upon  the  beauty  of  Sallie  Yarbrough's  hands,  or 
upon  her  other  charms.  I  saw  her  with  the  eyes  of  the 
young  lover.  She  was  crowned  with  an  aureole  of  light 
and  love  and  beauty.  She  was  the  fulfillment  of  all  my 
boyish  dreams.  She  was  the  ideal  for  whom  my  soul  had 
longed.    She  was  my  angel,  my  queen,  my  Apotheosis. 

The  old  folks  were  very  kind.  They  had  their  supper 
early,  retired  to  the  little  shed-room  and  closed  the  door. 
This  left  Sallie  and  me  in  the  big  room  together.  The  fire 
burned  brightly  on  the  hearth.  The  full  moon  shed  her 
silver  rays  upon  the  little  porch.  All  nature  seemed  in  unison 
with  the  love  that  pulsed  within  my  heart.  There  in  that 
humble  home,  I  told  this  vision  of  beauty  of  my  love.  I 
urged  my  suit.     I  asked  her  to  be  my  wife. 

This  all  had  happened  within  less  than  two  months.  I  do 
not  regret  that,  even  as  a  lad,  I  had  the  courage  of  my  con- 
victions. After  the  midnight  hour  had  come,  and  after  the 
great  log  fire  had  burned  until  the  dying  embers  proclaimed 
that  another  day  had  dawned,  she  told  me  that  she  would 
be  my  wife. 

That  was  the  consummation  of  all  my  youthful  dreams. 
It  was  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  before  we  separated.  Our 
separation  was  not  for  long,  for  at  five  old  man  Yarbrough 


138       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

and  his  wife  were  astir  and  preparing  to  get  breakfast.  I 
did  not  sleep  more  than  thirty  minutes,  I  am  sure,  and  this 
was  the  second  night  in  which  I  had  had  no  sleep  at  all. 

But  I  was  not  sleepy  that  night.  I  was  happy  in  the 
thought  of  the  love  that  I  had  won,  and  I  did  not  really,  at 
that  time,  care  what  else  happened.  It  did  not  seem  that 
anything  else  mattered. 

Sunday  morning  dawned  as  brightly  as  dawned  God's 
first  sweet  day  of  rest.  I  lingered  in  the  Yarbrough  home, 
went  to  church  with  the  family,  kept  very  near  to  my  lady 
love,  and  more  thoroughly  ingratiated  myself  into  the  affec- 
tions of  the  man  and  woman  who  were  soon  to  be  my  father- 
in-law  and  mother-in-law. 

When  Monday  morning  came,  I  turned  my  face  back  to 
the  Colorado  River,  to  Smithville  and  to  our  Hallmark's 
Prairie  home.  Never  did  a  happier  youth  leave  his  bride- 
elect  behind.  I  knew  no  care  on  that  bright  December  morn- 
ing when  I  bade  my  lady  love  good-bye.  She  was  sweetness 
and  graciousness  itself,  and  when  I  left,  I  promised  that  I 
would  be  back  in  less  than  a  month,  and  that  in  the  mean- 
time I  would  write  her  often.  The  mails  went  down  Alum 
Creek  way  twice  a  week,  and  came  back  to  Jeddo  twice  a 
week. 

After  I  reached  home,  I  wrote  her  at  once,  and  if  I  do 
say  it  myself,  I  was  a  good  letter  writer.  Her  letter  came 
promptly,  and  so  our  correspondence  went  on  happily  until 
on  the  last  Saturday  in  the  following  January,  I  went  again 
to  visit  Alum  Creek,  the  scene  of  my  happy  Christmas  time 
experiences.  But  when  I  went  back  to  Alum  Creek,  I  did 
not  go  by  way  of  Smithville.  The  January  floods  had  come, 
and  I  had  to  go  around  by  Bastrop  to  cross  on  the  ferry. 
Alum  Creek  was  fifteen  miles  below  Bastrop  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Colorado,  whereas  Hallmark's  Prairie  was  on 
the  south  side  of  the  river. 

I  reached  the  Yarbrough  home  on  the  last  Saturday  even- 


CLOSING  SCENES  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY  139 

ing  in  January,  1876.  I  found  all  the  folks  at  home.  The 
old  folks  were  quite  cordial,  but  somehow  my  sweetheart 
was  not  as  she  had  been  when  I  had  bidden  her  good-bye 
a  month  before.  After  I  had  cared  for  my  horse  in  the 
Yarbrough  barn,  Sallie  and  I  went  huckleberrying  together. 
The  huckleberries  were  ripe,  and  this  was  our  quickest  way 
of  having  a  tete-a-tete.  It  seemed  that  some  great  change 
had  come  over  the  girl  who  had  promised  to  be  my  wife. 
I  did  not  know  then  what  it  was,  and  I  do  not  know  today, 
but  I  suspect  it  was  another  beau. 

I  read  once  and  selected  for  my  scrap-book  a  poem  en- 
titled, Absence  Makes  the  Soul  Grow  Fonder,  but  it  was 
not  that  old  song  that  has  been  sung  so  many  times  by 
aching,  absent  hearts.  It  was  a  parody  on  that  old  song. 
The  last  verse  of  the  first  stanza  read  as  follows : 

"  Absence  makes  the  soul  grow  fonder  of  beaux  at  home." 

I  had  been  away.  The  Alum  Creek  boys  had  been  on 
the  ground.  They  had  seen  Sallie  every  day,  perhaps,  and 
certainly  every  Sunday.  The  January  post-Christmas  dances 
had  been  in  progress,  and  they  had  been  to  dances  with  her. 
She  shone  more  brilliantly  in  the  ball  room  than  in  any 
other  place,  and  it  was  there,  I  am  sure,  that  her  heart  wan- 
dered away  from  the  homely,  uncouth  Hallmark's  Prairie 
boy. 

She  was  kind  and  gentle,  but  that  fine,  ethereal  down  of 
love  had  been  despoiled.  There  was  left  in  its  stead  a 
patronizing  formality.  When  our  hands  touched,  there  was 
not  that  same  magnetic  thrill  that  I  had  felt  when  I  first 
learned  the  joy  and  the  tragedy  of  love.  My  heart  went 
into  my  boots.  All  my  life  I  have,  in  many  matters,  judged 
more  by  my  intuitions  than  by  my  reason.  She  did  not  tell 
me  that  she  had  ceased  to  love  me.  Her  words  were  all  that 
words  should  have  been.  But  an  indefinable  barrier  had 
arisen  between  us  that  I  could  not  bridge,  and  she  did  not 
seem  to  wish  it  bridged. 


140       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

Between  the  time  of  her  promise  to  be  my  wife  and  my 
second  visit  to  her,  father's  plans  had  changed.  The  range 
had  almost  failed  in  our  end  of  Bastrop  County.  Our  cattle 
and  horses  were  increasing,  and  the  grass  was  gone.  Father 
decided  that  we  would  move  into  West  Texas,  leaving  that 
country  behind  forever.  This  change  in  our  plans,  which 
was  very  far-reaching,  was  communicated  to  my  sweetheart. 
I  told  her  that  if  we  were  to  marry  at  all,  we  would  have 
to  marry  between  that  and  the  first  of  March,  as  it  was  my 
father's  purpose  for  us  to  start  with  the  cattle  about  the 
middle  of  March  or  first  of  April.  We  really  began  the 
drive  the  first  of  April. 

She  told  me  very  kindly  that  she  still  loved  me  and  that 
she  meant  to  be  my  wife,  but  that  she  could  not  go  with  me 
then.  She  reiterated  that  we  were  too  young  to  marry, 
which  really  was  true  enough,  and  said  that  she  could  not 
think,  at  her  age,  of  leaving  her  mother. 

I  was  a  foolish  boy.  I  had  intuitively  felt  the  change  that 
had  come  over  the  spirit  of  her  dreams.  I  told  her  very 
frankly  that  if  she  could  not  go  with  me  then,  she  never 
would  go  with  me;  that  I  was  going  with  my  father;  that 
I  had  engaged  myself  to  him ;  that  he  was  paying  me  a  good 
salary  for  my  services,  and  that  I  was  under  every  moral 
and  filial  obligation  to  stand  by  my  word. 

She  was  gentle,  kind  and  considerate,  but  firm,  and  so, 
while  I  stayed  all  that  night  at  her  home,  and  talked  to  her 
until  late  in  the  night,  we  parted  about  the  midnight  hour, 
with  her  plans  unchanged,  and  with  my  mind  made  up  to 
leave  early  the  next  morning  for  my  home,  and  thus  to  biH 
her  good-bye  forever. 

The  Colorado  River  was  very  high  and  very  dangerous. 
As  I  had  crossed  at  the  Bastrop  ferry  the  day  before,  the 
deadly  drifts  were  swirling  in  the  turbid  waves.  I  knew 
the  stream  was  treacherous,  but  I  did  not  care  whether  I 


CLOSING  SCENES  IN  BASTROP  COUNTY   141 

ever  reached  the  other  side  or  not.  My  heart  was  broken. 
All  the  hope  and  love  and  light  had  faded  from  my  life. 

It  was  after  breakfast  when  I  left  her.  She  seemed  much 
affected  by  my  decision.  Perhaps  I  made  a  mistake.  I  do 
not  know.  I  was  very  young.  It  may  have  been  that  I  was 
entirely  mistaken  in  my  intuitions.  It  may  have  been  that 
she  really  loved  me,  wanted  me  to  come  back  for  her  when 
the  cattle  drive  was  done,  and  desired  to  carry  out  the  troth 
which  we  had  plighted  in  the  glow  of  the  dying  embers, 
when  our  new-found  love  had  thrilled  our  trusting  hearts. 

As  I  left  the  Yarbrough  home,  she  was  standing,  with 
her  sweet  face  framed  in  the  cabin  door,  with  her  auburn 
ringlets  twined  around  her  neck,  and  with  tears  streaming 
from  her  sweet  violet  eyes. 

I  never  saw  her  more. 

I  hastened  on  "  Old  Ball "  to  the  Colorado,  where  the  old 
Smithville  ford  had  been,  and  plunged  into  its  raging  waves. 
It  was  a  terrible  experience,  but  I  did  not  care.  I  wanted  to 
be  drowned.  All  my  life  plans  had  been  wrecked,  and,  as  I 
viewed  it  then,  there  was  nothing  in  life  to  which  I  could 
look  forward. 

"  Old  Ball  "  was  equal  to  the  great  emergency.  He  was  a 
big,  strong  horse.  He  was  a  great  swimmer.  I  had  tried  his 
mettle  before,  but  it  never  had  been  subjected  to  such  a 
severe  test  as  this.  He  braved  the  drifts,  and  carried  me 
safely  to  the  Smithville  side. 

I  once  looked  back,  but  it  was  more  than  five  miles  to 
where  I  had  left  the  idol  of  my  heart.  I  dared  not  retrace 
my  steps.  If  I  had  exhibited  as  much  intelligence  in  my 
wooing  as  Henry  Scoggins  showed  in  courting  Aunt  Zillah 
Hale,  I  might  have  held  her,  but  I  had  very  little  sense,  1 
had  no  experience  and  I  wandered  out  into  the  darkness  of 
my  heart's  Plutonian  night  without  compass  or  rudder. 

It  was  thus  that  I  met  my  life's  first  tragedy  of  love  and 
tears. 


142       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

My  mother  knew  at  once  that  something  tragical  had 
happened,  but  she  was  kind  and  did  not  catechize  me.  When 
I  reached  home,  I  went  to  my  little  box  (I  had  no  trunk, 
kind  reader,)  and  taking  off  the  padlock  that  held  its  con- 
tents sacred  to  me,  I  took  out  all  the  letters  I  had  received 
from  Sallie  Yarbrough,  and,  going  to  the  kitchen  stove,  I 
built  up  a  fire  and  burned  them  one  by  one.  It  was  pathetic 
to  the  last  degree. 

My  tears  fell  fast. 

It  may  not  be  manly  to  shed  tears — perhaps  it  is  not — but 
I  was  not  yet  a  man.  I  was  but  a  big,  uncouth  boy,  with 
only  the  rudiments  of  the  heart  of  a  man,  but  I  felt  all  the 
agony  and  suffered  all  the  pangs  that  can  come  to  one  who 
has  loved  and  lost. 

When  this  sad  task  was  done,  I  turned  my  face  like  flint 
to  the  future.  That  evening,  when  all  the  rest  were  asleep, 
I  told  my  mother  all.  She  clasped  her  arms  around  my 
neck  and  kissed  me.  She  told  me  that  it  would  all  be  for 
the  best — that  I  was  not  to  grieve  or  worry  or  repine.  What 
a  comfort  was  my  sweet,  gentle  mother  in  that  time  of  heart- 
ache and  of  tears !  And  she  was  right.  It  did  all  turn  out 
for  the  best.  In  God's  good  providence,  I  buried  that  first 
romance  in  the  new-made  grave  that  held  sacred  the  dust 
and  ashes  of  my  first  love.  That  grave  has  never  been  dis- 
turbed, and  I  only  open  it  now  to  the  end  that  this  may  be 
a  faithful  chronicle,  and  one  that  will  show  to  those  who 
have  known  and  loved  me  the  tempests  as  well  as  the  sun- 
shine that  have  conspired  to  make  up  my  life. 


XVIII 

THE  END  OF  OUR  RESIDENCE  IN  BASTROP 
COUNTY 

AFTER  my  tragedy  had  found  its  close,  I  began  with 
father  and  his  other  hands  actively  to  prepare  for 
the  cattle  drive  to  the  great  fresh  grass  plains  of 
Western  Texas.  Spring  came  in  earnest  the  first  of  Feb- 
ruary. By  the  middle  of  February,  the  flowers  had  begun 
to  bloom,  and  if  father  had  not  been  preparing  to  leave  that 
country,  we  would  surely  have  begun  as  usual  planting  corn 
on  St.  Valentine's  day. 

In  an  intervening  moment  of  weakness  I  yielded  to  the 
great  love  I  bore  the  Alum  Creek  beauty,  and  on  Valentine's 
Day  I  sent  her  the  verses  of  a  song,  which  began  thus : 

"'Tis  said  that  absence  conquers  love, 
But,  oh,  believe  it  not. 
I've  tried,  alas !  its  power  to  prove, 
And  thou  art  not  forgot." 

Other  stanzas  followed.  I  hoped  against  hope  that  this 
olive  branch,  in  which  I  sought  for  a  resurgence  of  that 
love  which  she  had  sworn  she  bore  me,  would  bring  her 
back,  but  no  answer  came,  and  this  ended  all  the  overtures 
I  ever  made  or  ever  was  to  make  to  win  back  her  love. 

But  the  cattle  gathering  and  horse  hunting  went  on.  Our 
cattle  were  scattered  in  many  directions  and  we  found  it 
necessary  to  literally  scour  the  country  to  find  them.  In 
quest  of  our  wandering  herd  I  once  neared  Smithville.  Down 
in  the  breaks  of  Colorado  River,  I  found  one  of  our  fine 
beef  steers.    He  had  become  almost  as  wild  as  a  deer.    We 

143 


144       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

had  a  terrible  time  heading  him  off  from  crossing  the  river, 
but  finally  I  roped  him  and  tied  him  to  a  nearby  tree.  The 
yellow  Negro  was  with  me.  It  was  late  at  night  before  we 
got  the  great  brute  home,  but  we  did  our  work  well.  You 
may  know  that  as  I  neared  the  Smithville  ford,  I  looked 
longingly  across  toward  the  Alum  Creek  hills,  but  I  was 
proud,  I  felt  slighted,  I  was  jealous,  and  so  for  the  last  time 
I  turned  away,  and  left  the  lady  love  to  such  devices  as 
were  hers. 

I  have  not  told  you  anything  of  the  old  South  Texas  way 
of  celebrating  Christmas.  On  our  way  down  to  Alum  Creek 
on  Christmas  eve  of  1875,  we  met  several  of  our  neighbor 
boys  who  were  headed  for  Jeddo.  When  they  reached 
Jeddo,  they  gathered  at  Asa  Bellamy's  blacksmith  shop  and 
began  to  fire  off  anvils.  That  was  their  way  of  making  the 
Christmas  noise.  We  have  it  now  in  our  cities  with  the 
cannon  fire-crackers,  the  blowing  of  whistles  and  the  other 
diabolical  inventions  that  have  descended  to  us  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  peace,  contentment  and  happiness  of  the 
populace.  In  those  virgin  country  days,  the  anvil-firing  went 
on  until  late  at  night,  and  sounded  like  distant  cannonading. 

Another  way  of  making  night  hideous  was  to  bore  auger 
holes  in  the  giant  oak  trees,  fill  these  auger  holes  with  pow- 
der, leave  a  fuse,  and  after  igniting  this  fuse,  to  get  out  of 
the  way  and  watch  the  powder  blow  the  giant  tree  to  atoms. 
Many  of  the  beautiful  oaks  of  which  Bastrop  County  boasted 
were  thus  despoiled.  In  some  places,  it  looked  as  though  a 
tornado  had  passed  through  the  land,  or  that  lightning  had 
shattered  these  lions  of  the  forest. 

But  "  time  and  tide  wait  for  no  man."  February  passed 
and  March  came  on.  Meantime,  my  father  sold  his  farm. 
We  had  a  sale,  at  which  our  furniture  and  many  of  our 
choice  books  were  sacrificed,  and  we  continued  active  prepa- 
rations for  our  move  to  a  better  range. 

The  cattle  industry  was  rapidly  declining.    The  center  of 


GOOD-BYE  TO  BASTROP  COUNTY        145 

cowboy  activity  had  moved  far  to  the  westward.  The  grass 
was  almost  gone.  The  range  was  being  fenced  by  settlers. 
We  had  been  in  Bastrop  County  almost  eight  years.  During 
that  time,  vast  transformations  had  occurred  both  in  the 
land  and  people.  The  cowboy  was  still  there,  to  be  sure,  but 
the  great  maverick-branding  campaigns  were  no  more 
known.  It  had  become  almost  a  crime  to  steal  a  cow — not 
quite  a  crime  as  yet,  but  was  coming  to  be  a  crime. 

I  remember  well  one  of  the  old-time  kindly  habits  of  those 
early  Texans.  When  father  killed  a  beef,  he  would  always 
send  the  choicest  cuts  to  his  neighbors  free  of  any  charge 
whatever.  Many  is  the  time  that  I  was  the  boy  he  would 
put  on  the  horse,  and  literally  load  the  horse  down  with 
these  choice  steaks  for  his  neighbors.  Water-melons, 
peaches,  fruit,  roasting  ears,  and  all  vegetables,  were  abso- 
lutely free  to  our  neighbors.  The  man  who  would  have  sold 
a  water-melon  would  have  been  run  out  of  the  country  by 
the  Ku-Klux.  No  man  sold  meat.  We  would,  of  course, 
sell  entire  hogs  or  entire  beeves  to  one  another,  but  when 
hog-killing  time  came,  the  same  happy  fashion  was  in  vogue, 
and  so  the  kindliness  went  round. 

My  father's  home  was  a  hostelry  for  all  the  wayward  trav- 
elers who  came  through  that  part  of  Texas.  Many  is  the 
man  who  stayed  all  night  with  us,  and  when  morning  came, 
and  the  traveler  would  ask  to  pay  his  bill,  father  would  give 
him  a  hearty  handgrasp  and  tell  him  that  all  he  owed  him 
was  to  come  back  again. 

The  cattle  roundup  went  on,  and  so  it  fell  out  that  by  the 
end  of  March  we  were  about  ready  to  begin  our  drive.  Many 
were  the  kindnesses  showered  upon  us  by  our  old  friends 
and  neighbors. 

God  bless  them  every  one  ! 

God  bless  all  who  are  living  now,  and  may  the  ashes  of 
those  long  dead  rest  quietly  in  peace ! 

Those  were  good  men  and  true — those  old-time  Texans. 


146       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

The  chief  tenet  in  their  religion  was  fidelity  to  their  friends. 
I  regret  that  some  otherwise  good  men  have  forgotten  how 
to  be  true.  These  frontier  men  were  true.  They  helped  us, 
they  cheered  us,  they  loved  us,  they  comforted  us,  they  re- 
gretted our  departure,  and  at  last,  when  the  day  came  for  us 
to  drive  our  cattle  up  the  old  Chisholm  trail,  these  good  peo- 
ple gathered  round,  many  of  them  went  a  full  day's  journey 
with  us,  some  went  two  or  three,  and  so  they  made  our  de- 
parture as  happy  as  ever  departure  could  be. 

I  close  this  part  of  this  recital  with  deep  regrets.  Tears 
come  so  fast  that,  as  I  write,  I  can  hardly  see  the  lines. 
We  lived  longer  in  Bastrop  County  than  at  any  other  place 
during  all  my  youth-time  years.  We  had  relatives  there, 
and  multitudes  of  friends.  Father  was  the  leading  citizen  of 
his  community,  and  the  leading  physician  of  four  counties. 
His  move  was  a  tremendous  blunder.  He  ought  to  have 
spent  all  of  his  remaining  years  right  there.  Of  course,  his 
cattle  business  would  not  have  grown,  and  his  other  stock 
interests  would  have  suffered  much,  but  on  the  whole  he 
would  have  done  better,  would  have  been  happier  and  would 
have  lived  longer  if  he  had  lingered  there  among  those 
friends  and  neighbors  who  knew  him  for  what  he  was,  who 
loved  him,  who  trusted  him,  and  who  made  requisition  for 
his  services  when  loved  ones  were  prone  upon  their  beds 
of  sickness  and  of  death. 

I  have  never  seen  the  old  home  since  that  spring  morning 
in  the  long  ago,  but  there  is  a  tugging  at  my  heart-strings, 
grandfather  as  I  am,  as  I  think  of  the  humble  cottage  where 
we  were  a  united  family,  and  where  we  grew  in  stature  and 
and  in  filial  love.  Dear  old  home  !  New  forms  and  faces 
came  to  you  more  than  two  scores  of  years  ago,  and  the 
voices  we  loved  so  well  no  more  resound  within  your  walls, 
but  every  atom  of  your  fast  crumbling  dust  is  sacred  to  my 
heart,  and  of  all  the  earthly  homes  I  ever  knew,  you  are  the 
one  that  seemed  most  akin  to  Heaven ! 


XIX 

ON  THE  OLD  CHISHOLM  BEEF  TRAIL 

AFTER  we  had  left  Bastrop  County,  traveling  by  way 
of  Red  Rock,  we  struck  the  old  Chisholm  beef  trail, 
which  went  up  through  Austin,  Round  Rock, 
Georgetown,  Belton,  Comanche  Springs,  Crawford,  Valley 
Mills,  Clifton,  Meridian,  Cleburne,  Fort  Worth  and  out 
across  Red  River  to  the  south  of  Gainesville. 

Our  party  was  a  happy  one.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  cow- 
boys who  journeyed  with  us  as  we  left  our  dear  old  Bastrop 
County  home.  There  were  Tom  Camp,  John  Greenhaw, 
Jim  Mayo  (who  was  a  younger  brother  of  Ebbie  Mayo), 
one  or  two  Negroes,  my  brother,  my  father  and  myself.  Our 
cattle  herd  was  not  large,  but  in  all  the  essentials  of  cowboy 
life  our  drive  was  like  unto  the  drives  of  the  larger  herds 
that  had  been  meandering  up  this  old  beef  trail  for  some  ten 
years  past.  We  had  our  "chuck  wagon,"  which  served  also 
as  a  refuge  in  which  our  women  were  housed  by  day  and 
slept  by  night.  We  who  were  actually  on  the  drive  slept  out 
under  the  bending  sky,  and  in  times  of  storm  we  brooked  the 
beating  rain.  It  is  essential  that  there  shall  always  be  some 
cowboys  around  the  cattle.  Cows  have  their  habits  just  as 
human  beings  have.  At  night  they  will  graze  for  several 
hours,  after  which,  unless  they  are  disturbed  by  some  ex- 
traneous influence  or  surprise,  they  are  very  quiet,  although, 
of  course,  if  they  are  not  well  herded,  they  scatter  and  may 
be  lost. 

When  a  herd  first  starts  out  on  the  trail,  it  is  most  difficult 
of  management,  because  the  cattle  have  not  become  accus- 

147 


148       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

tomed  to  each  other.  They  are  not  acquainted  with  the 
cowboys,  they  do  not  know  the  cow  ponies  that  surround 
them,  and,  in  short,  everything  to  them  is  new  and  strange. 
Animal  life  is  very  much  like  human  life.  We  become  con- 
fidential with  those  whom  we  learn  to  know,  and  animals  do 
exactly  the  same.  After  a  herd  of  cattle  has  been  several 
days  on  the  trail,  it  is  very  easy  to  manage,  and  it  is  only 
in  some  time  of  great  stress  or  excitement  that  a  stampede 
ensues.  Many  of  the  stampedes  are  caused  by  bad  manage- 
ment, some  by  storms  and  others  by  superstition. 

When  a  herd  of  cattle  first  sets  out,  every  cowboy  has  to 
be  up  nights,  and  on  the  qui  vive  all  day  to  see  that  no  harm 
comes  to  his  charge.  It  was  thus  in  our  case.  During  the 
first  few  nights  of  the  drive,  all  of  us  lost  much  sleep.  We 
had  to  be  up  and  around  the  cattle,  quietly  singing  to  them, 
becoming  acquainted  with  them,  and  allowing  them  to  be- 
come acquainted  with  us,  and  in  this  way  familiarizing  them 
with  the  road,  with  each  other  and  with  us.  Later  on,  we 
had  a  much  better  time,  though  our  force  was  not  very  great, 
and  for  that  reason  we  had  perhaps  a  little  heavier  work 
than  would  otherwise  have  fallen  to  us. 

We  had  at  first  no  relief  at  all  at  night,  but  after  we  had 
been  out  two  or  three  nights,  we  had  one  relief.  For  in- 
stance, if  I  were  on  watch  in  the  first  part  of  the  night,  1 
would  stay  on  watch  till  eleven  or  twelve  o'clock,  at  which 
time  I  would  come  in,  wake  my  successor  and  turn  in.  If  I 
were  on  watch  the  latter  part  of  the  night,  of  course  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  sleeping  the  first  part  of  the  night.  And 
so  we  took  our  turns,  and  tried  to  make  it  as  pleasant  for 
each  other  as  we  could. 

Well  do  I  remember  when  we  reached  the  hills  overlook- 
ing Onion  Creek  valley  and  the  boundless  prairie  that 
stretches  out  toward  Austin.  I  had  been  too  small  when  we 
left  the  Western  prairies  to  take  much  notice  of  them,  and 
this  was  the  first  time  my  eyes  had  ever  feasted  on  such  a 


ON  THE  OLD  CHISHOLM  BEEF  TRAIL     149 

celestial  vision.  It  was  a  glorious  view — as  magnificent  as 
any  ever  chronicled  in  song  or  story,  or  painted  on  canvas 
by  a  Corot  or  a  Turner.  My  heart  thrilled  with  rapture,  as, 
sitting  on  my  broncho  on  that  high  eminence,  I  saw  Onion 
Creek  as  it  meandered  tortuously,  but  most  beautifully,  on 
its  journey  toward  the  sea,  while  before  me  on  every  side 
were  the  boundless  prairies  that  told  to  me  a  story  more 
transcendently  beautiful  than  any  I  had  ever  read,  or  to 
which  my  ears  had  ever  been  attuned. 

We  journeyed  by  easy  stages.  Cattle  do  not  drive  rapidly. 
It  would  be  a  crime  to  hurry  them.  We  were  not  in  any 
nervous  haste.  We  were  out  and  away,  leaving  the  old  home 
behind,  never  to  see  it  more,  and  had  as  our  chief  charge  a 
conservation  of  our  resources.  Each  cowboy  had  his  extra 
mount  or  mounts.  I  had  two  extra  mounts,  and  that  was  the 
rule.  Sometimes  a  cowboy  would  have  only  one  extra 
mount,  but  if  he  had  only  one  he  was  rather  badly  off. 

We  passed  through  Austin  on  the  fifth  day.  That  was 
the  first  large  town  I  had  ever  seen.  I  had  been  to  Bastrop, 
to  Jeddo  and  to  Cockrell's  Store.  That  had  been  the  extent 
of  my  travels.  The  nearest  to  a  railroad  train  I  had  ever 
seen  was  a  railway  track  that  was  being  laid  out  througfi 
Waelder  in  Gonzales  County,  when  the  Southern  Pacific  was 
under  construction  west  from  Columbus,  stretching  out 
toward  the  vast  plains  that  touched  El  Paso  and  Mexico.  It 
was  in  the  fall  of  1875  that  my  brother  and  I  had  been  to 
Waelder  with  our  cotton,  had  sold  it  there,  had  seen  the 
construction  camps,  had  met  the  construction  gangs,  and 
had  actually  seen  railroad  tracks,  but  there  was  nothing  there 
in  the  way  of  a  passenger  train  or  coach. 

As  we  passed  through  Austin,  we  saw  no  railway  trains, 
yet  the  H.  &  T.  C.  railroad  had  reached  there  Dec.  25,  1871. 
Austin  was  a  gorgeous  city.  On  Congress  Avenue  we 
passed  Sisson's  music  store.  I  had  never  been  in  a  "  really 
and  truly  "  music  store  in  my  life,  and  right  there  the  cattle 


150       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

herd  lost  me.  I  stopped  and  bought  a  brand  new  fiddle  case 
and  bow.  I  had  never  had  a  good  fiddle  bow.  We  had  re- 
made our  fiddle  bows  out  of  horse  hair,  and  in  this  kindly 
service  Daniel  Johnson  had  excelled.  I  never  could  make 
any  kind  of  a  mechanical  contrivance,  but  Daniel  Johnson 
was  a  boy  of  splendid  ability  in  that  direction,  and  he  always 
"  filled  "  our  fiddle  bows  with  new  hair.  Now  I  had  the 
opportunity  to  buy  a  real  fiddle  bow.  Soon  I  overtook  the 
herd,  and  we  bedded  our  cattle  that  night  north  of  Austin 
on  the  high  hills  overlooking  the  city  from  the  north. 

Our  trip  up  the  trail  was  without  great  incident.  When 
we  reached  Georgetown,  we  had  a  little  trouble  concerning 
our  cowboy  confrere,  Tom  Camp.  Tom  was  as  reckless  a 
lad  as  ever  went  up  the  old  Chisholm  trail.  In  spite  of  our 
protests,  he  would  wear  his  revolver  right  through  county 
towns.  All  of  us  wore  our  revolvers  on  the  trail,  and 
nothing  was  said  of  it.  There  were  no  officers  to  molest  us. 
When  we  would  come  to  a  county  town,  where  there  might 
be  constables  or  sheriffs,  we  would  throw  our  revolvers  into 
the  "  chuck  wagon,"  and  nobody  would  be  any  the  wiser. 
This  Tom  Camp  stubbornly  refused  to  do.  He  said  if  any 
sheriff  attempted  to  arrest  him,  he  would  show  him  the 
"  Western  turn."  This  "  Western  turn  "  consisted  in  twirl- 
ing the  revolver  around  one  thumb  and  finger  by  the  aid 
of  the  trigger-guard,  and  as  the  muzzle  of  the  revolver 
would  find  its  level  again,  to  fire  and  kill  one's  antagonist. 
This  is  what  Tom  promised  he  would  give  any  sheriff  that 
molested  him.  It  happened  that  I  was  looking  at  Tom  when 
the  sheriff  got  him.  He  was  really  off  duty,  having  stopped 
in  front  of  a  barber  shop  to  make  a  display  of  his  wit  and 
courage,  and  as  he  sat  there  on  his  broncho,  the  sheriff 
gently  tapped  him  on  the  arm  and  told  him  to  consider  him- 
self under  arrest.  This  Tom  promptly  did.  There  was  no 
"  Western  turn."  The  only  turn  I  noticed  was  that  Tom 
turned  white  as  he  yielded  up  his  cherished  weapon.     We 


ON  THE  OLD  CHISHOLM  BEEF  TRAIL     151 

were  all  quite  sorry  for  him,  and  made  up  money  to  pay  his 
fine  and  redeem  his  revolver,  so  that  he  could  go  along  with 
the  herd.  He  was,  after  that,  a  wiser  man.  It  proved  a 
good  lesson  for  him.  He  was  truly  a  splendid  fellow,  and, 
in  fact,  a  brave  young  man,  but  he  mistook  his  recklessness 
for  courage,  and  in  making  this  display  of  himself,  brought 
himself  into  ridicule  and  difficulty. 

The  only  other  incident  of  note  on  the  journey  was  at 
Belton.  When  we  reached  Belton,  which  was  then  quite  a 
conspicuous  county  town,  Tom  Holcomb  was  playing  a  hddle 
in  a  corner  saloon.  That  caught  me.  He  was  playing  "  Fine 
Times  at  Our  House."  I  stopped,  dismounted  and  went  into 
the  saloon  to  hear  the  music.  I  knew  the  cattle  would  not 
suffer,  because  by  the  time  we  reached  Belton,  they  had  be- 
come quite  tractable  and  were  not  difficult  to  drive.  I  intro- 
duced myself  to  Tom,  told  him  I  was  from  Bastrop  County, 
and  that  I  was  somewhat  of  a  fiddler  myself.  We  at  once 
became  good  chums.  I  did  not  see  him  again  for  several 
years.  The  next  time  I  met  him,  I  was  living  in  Gatesville 
and  was  editor  of  The  Gatesville  Advance.  Of  this,  more 
hereafter. 

We  had  a  very  exasperating  experience  in  Belton.  At 
that  time  and  for  some  two  or  three  years  previous,  there 
was  in  force  in  Texas  what  was  called  a  cattle  inspection 
law.  This  inspection  law  had  been  passed  in  the  attempt  to 
discourage  cattle  stealing.  Perhaps  it  had  some  deterrent  ef- 
fect, but  the  old-time  cow  men  hated  the  law,  and  were  very 
averse  to  obeying  it.  Father,  however,  was  a  law  abiding 
man  in  everything  except  the  carrying  of  a  six  shooter,  so 
when  we  reached  the  line  separating  Bastrop  from  Travis 
County,  my  father  paid  to  an  inspection  officer  the  fee  that 
was  chargeable  to  him,  which  was  about  four  cents  a  head. 
When  we  reached  Belton,  the  sheriff  dunned  us  for  our  in- 
spection fees.  My  father  exhibited  his  receipt  for  inspection 
fees  paid  in  Bastrop  County,  but  the  sheriff  of  Bell  County 


152       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

advised  him  that  this  fee  had  to  be  paid  again  in  Bell  County. 
We  knew  this  was  not  true,  so  all  of  us  were  up  in  arms 
at  once,  though  very  quietly.  We  gathered  around  my 
father  and  listened  to  what  the  sheriff  said.  My  father  was 
a  man  ot  peace,  though  of  sterling  courage.  He  declined  t6 
pay  more  money,  but  told  the  sheriff  that  we  would  rope  out 
a  beef  steer  and  leave  with  him  with  which  to  pay  these  fees. 
This  was  done.  I  roped  the  biggest  steer  in  the  herd.  He 
was  what  we  called,  in  cowboy  parlance,  a  "  stag."  He  was 
one  of  the  strongest  and  most  daring  animals  I  ever  saw. 
I  roped  him  with  a  rope  that  was  none  too  strong,  and  did 
this  designedly.  I  tied  him  to  a  tree,  and  in  tying  him, 
dexterously  cut  two  strands  of  the  rope.  This  was  not  seen 
by  the  sheriff  or  any  one  else.  I  felt  outraged  at  this  man's 
interference  with  our  affairs.  I  knew  that  we  owed  nothing, 
and  felt  then,  as  I  feel  now,  that  it  was  a  pure  case  of  graft, 
though  the  word  "  graft  "  had  not  yet  come  into  our  vocab- 
ulary. 

We  drove  speedily  across  the  Leon  River  bridge.  Before 
we  had  made  our  way  entirely  across  the  bridge,  here  came 
our  beef  steer,  with  his  head  high  in  the  air,  and  with  a  piece 
of  the  rope  clinging  around  his  horns.  The  bird  had  flown, 
and  the  sheriff  was  left  without  his  inspection  fee.  We  fully 
expected  that  he  and  some  of  his  deputies  would  follow  on, 
and  if  they  had  come,  there  would  have  been  bloodshed. 
Happily,  they  did  not  follow  us. 

After  leaving  Belton,  we  passed  on  up  by  way  of 
Comanche  Springs  and  Crawford.  At  the  latter  point,  we 
left  the  trail  and  went  almost  directly  west  through  one  of 
the  finest  grazing  section  in  Texas  or  any  other  state.  We 
made  our  way  up  the  middle  Bosque,  and  after  we  had  gone 
some  ten  or  fifteen  miles  up  the  Bosque,  we  turned  to  the 
north  and  finally  camped  and  settled  at  the  head  of  Hog 
Creek,  near  what  was  then  called  Tilden's  Schoolhouse, 
some  five  miles  from  the  village  of  Tumersville,  and  some 


ON  THE  OLD  CHISHOLM  BEEF  TRAIL     153 

twenty  miles  from  Gatesville.  This  was  in  Coryell  County, 
and  we  reached  our  stopping  place  about  the  middle  of  May. 
The  country  around  Turnersville,  and  throughout  the  Hog 
Creek  section  is  beautiful,  rich  and  productive.  At  that  time, 
very  little  land  had  been  put  in  cultivation.  It  was  a  grazing 
country,  just  such  as  father  sought,  and  having  rented  a 
house,  we  arranged  to  make  this  rich  new  land  our  home. 


XX 

THE  STORY  OF  A  STAMPEDE 

IN  1876,  the  Wilson  brothers,  of  Kansas  City,  having 
purchased  over  fifteen  thousand  head  of  cattle  in  Ham- 
ilton, Comanche,  Coryell  and  Bell  Counties,  and  hav- 
ing arranged  to  centralize  the  herd  near  Comanche  Springs, 
in  McLennan  County,  drove  to  the  Bennett  Hills,  and  went 
into  camp  to  await  the  carrying  out  of  their  orders.  These 
cattle  were  driven  across  the  Leon  at  various  suitable  fords 
and  converged  on  that  beautiful  prairie,  in  the  center  of 
which  now  stands  the  town  of  McGregor.  On  the  Fourth  of 
July  of  that  year,  the  entire  herd  was  under  way,  headed  for 
Towash  on  the  Brazos  River.  It  was  a  magnificent  army 
of  steers,  in  superb  condition,  kept  together  by  a  corps  of 
twenty-five  cowboys,  mounted  on  bronchos — men  expe- 
rienced in  their  business.  The  herd  was  not  pressed,  the 
object  being  to  let  them  graze  on  the  rich  herbage,  with  a 
view  to  keeping  them  in  good  condition  and  reaching  the 
market  in  time  to  catch  the  best  prices  in  the  fall  of  the  year. 
At  four  o'clock  one  afternoon  there  were  signs  of  an  elec- 
tric storm.  A  black  cloud  showed  above  the  foothills,  and 
the  sun  shining  against  it  painted  a  rainbow  which  appeared 
to  touch  the  earth  at  both  ends.  The  entire  herd  became 
nervous  and  showed  their  fear  by  those  low  bellowings, 
ominous  to  the  experienced  cattle  man  as  the  muttering  thun- 
der. The  cowboys  were  experienced  men,  and  they  kept 
the  moving  mass  well  in  hand,  so  that  when  the  sun  set  all 
was  well,  and  the  cattle  were  bedded  on  the  plains  near  the 
South  Bosque.  The  night  settled  in  with  the  promise  of  a 
safe  crossing  at  the  Brazos  the  next  day.    A  detail  of  four 

154 


THE  STORY  OF  A  STAMPEDE  155 

cowboys  was  made  for  the  first  watch,  and  these  mounted 
sentinels  took  their  places  and  rode  silently  round  the  sleep- 
ing  squadron  of  long-horns.  The  first  watch  ended  at  nine 
o'clock,  and  the  second  watch  went  on  duty.  It  was  during 
the  second  watch  that  the  memorable  Wilson  stampede  oc- 
curred. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  cattle  appeared  to  be  sleeping  pro- 
foundly. The  cowboys  say  that  cattle  dream  and  see  ghosts ; 
it  is  certain  that  this  drove  of  fifteen  thousand  was  nervous, 
made  so,  perhaps,  by  the  thunder-storm  of  the  previous  aft- 
ernoon and  the  rainbow  which  they  had  eyed  with  suspicion. 
It  is  likely  that  a  great  many  cattle  in  that  vast  accumula- 
tion had  never  seen  such  a  rainbow.  It  was  distinct  through- 
out the  arch  and  very  broad;  the  lightning,  too,  was  very 
vivid,  and  the  thunder-claps  that  followed  were  like  sharp 
artillery.  The  cowboys  insisted  long  afterward  that  it  was 
the  thunder-storm  and  the  rainbow  of  the  afternoon  that 
caused  the  stampede  that  night.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  was 
a  stampede  that  the  cattlemen  who  witnessed  it  have  never 
forgotten,  and  are  still  telliflg  it  to  posterity. 

The  stars  were  all  shining  and  there  was  no  cause  at  all 
for  the  arousing  of  the  herd.  They  appeared  to  get  up  all 
at  once,  with  a  single  purpose,  and  the  roar  that  was  heard 
seemed  to  come  from  a  single  throat.  The  Wilson  brothers 
and  their  cowboys  who  were  sleeping  in  their  camp  rushed 
to  their  ponies,  who  were  grazing  with  the  saddles  and 
bridles  on,  and  as  fast  as  the  bits  could  be  replaced  in  their 
mouths,  they  mounted  and  galloped  to  the  flanks  of  the  now 
disappearing  mass,  headed  in  the  direction  of  the  Brazos 
River. 

The  cowboys  on  guard  took  the  usual  course  in  such 
cases ;  they  kept  out  of  the  way  of  the  charging  mass,  and 
galloped  on  the  flanks,  moving  toward  the  head  of  the 
column,  hoping  to  "  point  them  off,"  as  they  call  it,  and 
start  them  moving  in  a  circle.     The  boys  who  formed  the 


156       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

guard,  in  galloping  along  the  front  of  the  stampede,  saw 
the  eyes  of  the  terrified  beeves  emitting  fire,  and  their 
tongues  protruding.  They  uttered  those  low  notes  of  terror 
so  familiar  on  the  plains,  and  galloped  madly  along,  suffering 
from  the  panic  for  which  no  real  cause  existed  on  earth. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  the  cattle  ?  "  asked  a  tenderfoot, 
as  he  galloped  beside  an  old  cowboy. 

"  They've  seen  the  devil,  I  expect,"  the  cowboy  replied, 
**  and  we  will  catch  it  before  we  get  through  with  this  thing." 

As  the  herd  rushed  on,  their  horns  rattled  together,  and 
all  the  horns  of  fifteen  thousand  head  of  cattle  rattling  to- 
gether sounded  like  an  immense  concert  of  castanets. 

Cattle  are  not  able  to  sustain  a  long  run,  and  this  the 
cowboys  know.  For  instance,  a  mad  speed  of  five  miles  is 
enough  to  break  down  almost  any  steer ;  and  the  cattle  men 
knew  how  the  country  lay  beyond  them,  and  in  this  respect 
they  had  an  advantage. 

The  re-enforcement  of  the  cowboys  who  were  off  duty, 
and  who  had  hastily  mounted  and  joined  those  on  watch 
at  the  time,  gave  them  a  strong  advantage  in  the  efforts 
being  made  to  stop  the  stampede.  The  plan  was  to  get  the 
cattle  to  "  milling,"  or  running  in  a  circle.  The  elder  of  the 
Wilson  brothers  had  been  a  cowboy  from  childhood.  He 
was  riding  a  cream  colored  stallion,  and  as  he  passed, 
he  had  his  Colt's  revolver  in  his  hand.  One  of  the  cowboys 
on  a  gray  horse  was  able  to  keep  up  with  him.  These  two 
distanced  all  the  others.  They  rode  across  the  front  of  the 
stampede,  which  is  a  feat  attended  with  terrific  danger ;  for 
when  a  rider  is  in  front  of  the  rushing  drove  of  mad  cattle, 
if  his  horse  should  stumble  and  fall,  he  may  be  put  down  as 
a  thing  of  the  past.  The  herd  will  "  wipe  him  out."  This 
Mr.  Wilson  knew  and  the  cowboy  riding  close  to  his  crupper 
also  knew,  but  they  were  going  to  take  all  the  dangers  and 
get  that  herd  running  in  a  circle  if  it  were  possible  to  do  so. 

Some  cattle  can  outrun  others,  and  in  this  case  there  was 


THE  STORY  OF  A  STAMPEDE  157 

a  bunch  of  about  fifty  fully  twenty  yards  in  advance,  and 
toward  this  leading  group  the  two  rescuers  rode.  Of  the 
leading  group  also,  some  were  faster  than  others,  and  this 
group  ran  in  a  diamond  shape,  with  two  immense  steers 
leading  all.  When  Mr.  Wilson  and  his  companion  reached 
the  two  leading  steers,  they  began  shooting  their  revolvers 
close  to  them,  and  in  that  way  the  bunch  was  made  to  oblique, 
and  as  the  leading  bunch  of  cattle  obliqued,  the  main  stam- 
pede obliqued,  and  the  first  step  in  "  milling "  had  been 
taken.  By  this  time,  the  cattle  were  getting  tired.  Nearly 
five  miles  had  been  covered,  and  the  breath  of  the  leaders 
was  coming  short  and  painfully,  but  they  were  rushing  on, 
because  the  front  cattle  at  this  time  knew  as  a  matter  of 
fact  their  only  safety  was  in  keeping  up  the  run.  Those  be- 
hind were  coming,  and  they  were  in  the  majority,  and  the 
leaders  were  compelled  to  run.  There  was  real  danger  for 
the  forward  members  of  the  stampede. 

In  the  invoice  of  articles  contained  in  the  regulation  "  out- 
fit," there  is  always  some  kind  of  stimulants,  and  but  for 
the  stimulants  contained  in  Mr.  Wilson's  outfit,  it  is  possible 
that  the  stampede  would  have  been  halted  without  disaster. 
He  had  a  Mexican  along,  one  of  the  best  cowboys  in  the 
Southwest.  This  Mexican  and  his  horse  always  reminded 
those  who  saw  him  ride  of  the  fabled  centaur.  He  rode  far 
forward  and  bent  over,  so  that  he  and  his  horse  appeared 
to  be  one  animal.  No  horse,  however  rugged,  "  wild  and 
woolly,"  had  ever  been  able  to  unseat  him.  This  Aztec  had 
been  to  the  little  brandy  runlet  too  often,  and  had  filled  and 
emptied  his  tin  cup  with  surreptitious  intoxicants,  so  that 
his  usual  excellent  judgment  went  awry.  When  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  mounted,  after  having  fumbled  with  his 
bridle  a  good  deal,  he  was  far  in  the  rear,  and  the  stampede 
had  gone  past  him,  so  that  when  he  overtook  the  rear  end, 
he  passed  to  the  front  on  the  other  side,  and  rode  on  the 
wrong  flank.    When  he  reached  the  head  of  the  herd,  he  was 


158       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

just  in  time  to  defeat  the  maneuver  then  under  execution,  of 
bending  the  moving  mass  from  a  straight  line  to  a  semi- 
circle. Revolver  in  hand,  disregarding  the  other  men,  he 
began  shooting  in  the  faces  of  the  wild  steers ;  and  the  effect 
of  this  was  to  straighten  the  run  and  bring  the  advance 
straight  toward  a  precipice.  This  precipice  was  a  wash  in 
the  prairie,  forming  a  deep  ravine  fully  thirty  yards  wide ; 
and  in  a  shorter  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  of  this  contretemps, 
the  head  of  the  column  was  pouring  over,  a  horrible  cascade 
of  beef,  plunging  madly  into  destruction  while  fleeing  from 
an  imaginary  danger.  When  Mr.  Wilson  and  his  lieutenants 
saw  that  it  was  impossible  to  save  their  cattle,  they  saved 
themselves  by  dexterously  turning  at  right  angles  at  full 
speed  and  riding  out  of  the  way. 

They  next  returned  to  the  flank  and  held  a  council  of  war. 
A  few  seconds  decided  them,  and  all  hands  commenced 
shooting  into  the  herd,  the  object  now  being  to  build  a  breast- 
work of  carcasses,  and  save  the  rear  end  from  the  destruction 
that  had  overtaken  the  front.  The  guUey,  was  nearly  full  of 
cattle  by  this  time.  They  were  snorting  and  bellowing, 
crashing  and  tearing,  and  still  heaping  up;  and  when  the 
firing  began,  the  wounded  ones  tumbled  over  on  the  others, 
and  in  a  short  time  the  gulley,  like  the  sunken  road  at  Water- 
loo, was  bridged  by  carcasses.  The  herd  surged  up  in 
billows,  like  an  ocean,  and  bent  now,  because  it  could  not  do 
otherwise.  The  semi-circle  was  formed,  and  Wilson  and  his 
men  crossed  the  gulley  below,  and  rode  around  the  opposite 
side  and  crossed;  and  in  a  short  time  they  had  the  cattle 
halted,  forming  an  incomplete  letter  C,  and  there  they  stood, 
blowing,  bellowing,  shivering.  All  hands  remained  on  watch 
all  night,  and  in  the  morning  when  a  count  was  made,  it  was 
ascertained  that  2,700  were  missing.  There  were  afterward 
2,700  pairs  of  horns  taken  from  that  gulley.  It  was  called 
Stampede  Gulley  for  many  years  afterward,  and  perhaps 
will  always,  with  some  people,  be  remembered  by  that  name. 


XXI 

IN  THE  HOG  CREEK  COUNTRY 

WHEN  we  reached  the  Hog  Creek  country,  it  was 
almost  a  virgin  range.  There  were  some  farms, 
but  the  country  in  the  main  was  open,  and  the 
owners  of  cattle  and  horses  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  free 
grass.  The  exact  point  on  Hog  Creek  where  we  located  was 
about  one  mile  from  Hurst  Spring,  which  is  the  head  of 
Hog  Creek.  We  were  up  on  the  prairie  north  of  this  source 
of  this  small  tributary  of  the  Brazos  River.  The  sage  grass 
was  rich  and  luscious.  It  grew  to  a  height  of  three  to  five 
feet,  and  I  have  never  seen  such  a  gorgeous  landscape  as 
greeted  our  vision  in  that  western  land.  Land  was  selling 
at  from  50  cents  to  $2.50  an  acre  for  the  wild  land,  and 
higher  prices  for  the  cultivated  land.  Some  farming  was 
going  on,  but  the  country  was  in  a  large  measure  given  over 
to  stock  raising. 

One  of  the  first  neighbors  we  found  was  Rev.  E.  M.  Weeks, 
a  Hardshell  Baptist  preacher.  He  had  a  large  family.  We 
soon  made  friends  with  them,  and  I  testify  that  they  were 
as  kind  and  cordial  in  their  greeting  as  any  friends  we  had 
ever  known.  There  were  three  of  the  Weeks  boys — John, 
Dave  and  Morgan — John  being  the  eldest  and  Morgan  the 
youngest,  and  there  was  a  beautiful  girl.  Miss  Mattie  Weeks. 
This  was  a  lovely  family,  and  E.  M.  Weeks  was  one  of  the 
most  genuinely  good  men  it  has  ever  been  my  pleasure  to 
know.  In  the  same  neighborhood  was  Newt  Nolan  and 
his  family,  and  others  whom  I  remember  with  a  grateful 
heart.  Some  of  the  others  were  J.  P.  Kinchen  and  his  family. 

159 


160       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

He  afterwards  became  an  ordained  Baptist  minister  and  is 
preaching  today  to  some  one  of  our  Texas  churches.  His 
wife,  long  since  in  Heaven,  was  one  of  the  noblest  Christian 
women  I  ever  knew.  All  these  good  friends  made  our  life 
as  bright  and  happy  as  might  be  in  a  strange  land,  and  we 
soon  adapted  ourselves  to  our  new  surroundings. 

We  lost  our  cowboy  friends.  Jim  Mayo  and  Tom  Camp 
took  the  trail  back  for  the  old  Bastrop  County  home,  and 
John  Greenhaw  branched  off  somewhere,  going  further 
West.  Our  cattle  in  the  meantime  had  become  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  trail  and  were  easy  to  manage.  It  does 
not  take  many  hands  to  herd  cattle,  so  my  brother  and  I 
took  charge  of  the  herd  after  we  had  reached  Coryell 
County.    We  drove  in  and  penned  the  cattle  at  night. 

One  of  the  incidents  of  that  early  Coryell  County  time  I 
remember  very  vividly.  I  was  out  herding  by  myself  one 
day,  my  brother  having  ridden  in  to  the  little  village  of 
Turnersville  to  get  the  mail.  It  was  very  easy  for  me  to 
keep  the  herd  rounded  up  in  the  day  time.  Summer  was 
approaching.  June  had  come.  At  the  noon-time  hour,  I 
always  turned  my  pony  loose  for  a  few  minutes,  taking  his 
bridle  off  so  that  he  might  graze  while  I  ate  my  lunch,  which 
I  carried  in  my  saddle  pocket.  I  found  myself  out  in  the 
wide  out-stretching  prairie,  and  nearby  was  the  debris  of  a 
house  that  some  frontiersman  had  started  to  construct  in 
the  days  long  past.  I  sat  down  on  one  of  the  timbers  of  this 
house  to  eat  my  lunch,  when  I  heard  the  familiar  but  startling 
whirr  of  the  rattlesnake's  song.  I  would  scarcely  dare  to 
tell  you  how  far  I  jumped.  It  might  shake  your  confidence 
in  my  veracity.  I  jumped  quickly  enough  to  save  my  life. 
I  had  sat  down  immediately  over  the  rattlesnake's  den,  and 
if  it  had  not  been  for  this  timely,  though  unfriendly,  warn- 
ing, I  would  never  have  reached  home  again.  I  turned 
quickly  and  shot  the  reptile,  taking  from  his  tail  twenty 
rattles.     It  is  the  theory  of  frontiersmen  that  every  rattle 


IN  THE  HOG  CREEK  COUNTRY    161 

on  a  rattlesnake's  tail  counts  for  a  year  of  his  age,  though 
that,  to  my  mind,  has  never  been  confirmed.  This  was  a 
monster  crotalus  and  one  that  I  shall  long  remember. 

Father  began  to  do  some  medical  practice,  but  it  was 
desultory  and  unremunerative.  He  never  did  re-establish 
himself  firmly  as  a  physician  after  he  left  Bastrop  County. 

We  had  some  relatives  near  the  Hog  Creek  home.  They 
lived  across  on  the  North  Bosque  in  Bosque  County,  at 
Cranfiirs  Gap.  George  Cranfill,  father's  uncle,  had  settled 
at  Cranfill's  Gap  about  1854.  First  he  stopped  in  Dallas 
County,  remaining  here  a  year  or  two.  I  have  talked  about 
him  to  my  good  friend,  John  Witt,  the  old-time  Dallas 
County  surveyor,  who  knew  Uncle  George  quite  well.  The 
Cranfills  out  there  were  typical  frontiersmen.  There  were 
three  of  the  sons,  Zach,  Ross  and  Sam,  in  the  order  named. 
They  were  prosperous  frontier  farmers.  Cousin  Ross  Cran- 
fill was  a  Hardshell  Baptist,  Cousin  Zach  was  non-religious, 
and  Cousin  Sam,  the  only  one  now  living,  is  a  Methodist. 

There  is  a  very  interesting  story  concerning  the  apostasy 
of  Cousin  Sam,  who,  by  all  human  environments  and  train- 
ing, should  have  been  a  Baptist.  There  was  once,  as  all 
well  informed  ecclesiastics  know,  an  eccentric  Methodist 
preacher  named  Lorenzo  Dow.  He  traveled  all  over  the 
North  and  perhaps  some  of  the  South.  Uncle  George,  when 
he  moved  from  North  Carolina,  settled  in  Illinois,  and  one 
night  Lorenzo  Dow  stopped  with  him  overnight.  He  was 
a  very  bright  man,  and  left  his  impress  upon  his  time.  He 
induced  Uncle  George  to  subscribe  for  a  paper  of  which  he 
was  editor,  and  that  paper  came  into  that  Cranfill  home  for 
a  whole  year.  Young  Sam,  the  baby  boy  of  the  family,  was 
at  an  impressionable  age,  and  literally  devoured  Lorenzo 
Dow's  paper.  This  paper  made  him  a  Methodist — the  only 
Methodist  Cranfill  I  have  ever  known.  He  is  an  excellent 
man,  has  reared  a  large  and  prosperous  family,  and  is  hon- 
ored and  highly  esteemed  by  all  who  know  him.     He  has 


162       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

told  me  more  than  once  of  this  influence  that  changed  him 
from  the  faith  of  his  fathers  to  the  Methodist  religion.  This 
is  a  magnificent  object  lesson  for  us  all.  This  and  other  like 
incidents  have  made  me  a  persistent  friend  of  Baptist  and 
Christian  literature.  The  man  who  writes  the  books  and 
edits  the  papers  of  a  people,  is  the  influential  man,  say  what 
you  will. 

The  Coryell  County  section  was  very  remote  from  what 
we  now  call  civilization.  The  nearest  market  was  Waco, 
fifty  miles  to  the  east.  The  Santa  Fe  railway  had  not  yet 
been  projected  up  along  the  line  of  the  old  Chisholm  beef 
trail,  and  the  grading  for  that  line  was  not  finished  until  two 
or  three  years  after.  We  were  about  twenty  miles  from 
Gatesville,  and  almost  a  like  distance  from  Meridian,  the 
county  site  of  Bosque  County.  Our  postoffice  was  Turners- 
ville,  and  was  kept  over  on  the  hill  between  Turnersville 
and  Coryell  City  by  a  good  white  lady  whose  name  was 
Black.  The  business  of  the  postoffice  was  very  small.  Our 
coming  increased  it  some,  as  we  subscribed  for  a  number  of 
papers  and  had  many  letters  coming  to  us. 

Over  at  Turnersville,  just  about  the  time  we  reached  the 
Coryell  County  home,  a  murder  was  committed.  A  man  by 
the  name  of  Brantley  was  waylaid  and  shot  in  the  little 
copse  of  timber  that  was  some  half  a  mile  above  the  Buch- 
anan Spring,  which  is  the  head  of  Middle  Bosque.  One  of 
the  most  grewsome  sights  I  ever  witnessed  was  brought  to  my 
attention  about  the  first  of  July,  1876.  We  had  changed 
our  cattle  from  the  prairie  between  the  Hog  Creek  breaks 
and  the  breaks  of  the  North  Bosque,  and  had  brought  them 
over  between  the  Hog  Creek  breaks  and  the  breaks  of  Middle 
Bosque.  It  was  in  about  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the  village  of 
Turnersville.  One  of  the  boys  who  was  helping  us  at  that 
time,  galloped  over  to  where  I  was  riding  and  told  me  a 
dead  man  had  been  found  and  was  then  lying  about  a  half 
mile  away  in  the  breaks  of  Middle  Bosque.    I  immediately 


IN  THE  HOG  CREEK  COUNTRY    163 

went  over  and  found  that  the  night  before  a  most  atrocious 
murder  had  been  committed.  Two  men  had  camped  to- 
gether. In  the  night  one  of  them  had  murdered  the  other, 
and  had  taken  all  of  the  dead  man's  belongings,  including 
the  horses  and  the  wagon,  and  decamped.  Before  decamp- 
ing, however,  he  lassoed  the  dead  man's  feet,  strung  the 
rope  around  the  horn  of  his  saddle,  dragged  the  man  feet 
foremost  about  three  hundred  yards,  concealing  his  body  in 
a  thick  clump  of  underbrush.  That  very  morning,  Dr.  J.  D. 
Calaway,  the  Turnersville  physician,  and  Uncle  Joe  Gaston, 
the  Turnersville  blacksmith,  went  out  deer  hunting.  They 
found  this  man's  dead  body  two  or  three  hours  after  he 
had  been  killed.  The  trail  was  followed,  but  the  man  that 
did  the  murder  was  never  apprehended. 

We  put  in  our  time  as  pastoral  people  will.  We  made 
many  acquaintances.  I  soon  knew  all  the  young  people  in 
the  community,  and  even  beyond  Turnersville. 

There  is  something  to  be  said  about  the  old  time  typical 
Texan.  He  is  the  biggest-hearted  man  that  the  world  has 
ever  known.  We  found  these  generous  Texans  all  over  that 
section  of  the  state,  and  all  of  us  who  have  survived  re- 
member the  multitudinous  kindnesses  we  received  at  their 
hands.  They  were  like  unto  the  Bastrop  County  folks,  with 
the  additional  touch  of  a  western  life,  of  which  the  Bastrop 
County  people  were  in  ignorance.  I  repeat  that  the  old- 
time  frontiersman  was  the  best  man,  the  truest  friend,  the 
kindest  neighbor,  the  most  generous  antagonist,  and  the 
sturdiest  type  of  the  real  and  genuine  American  it  has  ever 
been  my  pleasure  to  know. 


XXII 
THE  STORY  OF  MY  CONVERSION 

IN  the  new  environment,  all  of  the  young  people  soon 
knew  that  I  was  a  fiddler  and  could  dance.  Just  as  it 
was  in  Bastrop  County,  I  found  it  up  in  Coryell 
County.  The  traditional  amusement  and  pastime  of  those 
sturdy  young  Texans  was  the  dance.  The  religious  people 
opposed  dancing  there,  just  as  they  had  in  our  old  home, 
but  I  was  soon  in  touch  with  the  frolicsome  set,  and  many 
were  the  country  dances  I  attended.  Over  at  Turnersville 
I  was  always  welcome,  and  was  at  home  in  the  Hog  Creek 
country  as  well  as  down  toward  Norway  Mills,  a  settlement 
of  Norwegians  in  Bosque  County.  The  children  of  the  most 
religious  families  in  Texas  danced  and  gave  dances,  although 
it  was  not  looked  upon  with  favor  by  the  members  of  the 
church. 

On  a  certain  Sunday  in  July,  1876,  along  with  some  other 
disciples  of  Terpsichore,  I  made  up  a  dance  which  was  to  be 
given  the  following  Wednesday  evening  at  Turnersville. 
One  of  the  young  ladies  who  helped  to  plan  the  dance  was 
Miss  Mamie  Pickens.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Episco- 
palian parents,  who  lived  between  Turnersville  and  Coryell 
City.  They  were  fine  folks.  Before  the  war  they  had  been 
wealthy,  but,  like  Dr.  Boone,  who  lived  in  the  same  neigh- 
borhood, and  was  a  typical  old-time  South  Carolina  gentle- 
man, they  had  lost  their  all  in  the  Civil  War  and  had  come 
out  to  that  new  country  to  take  a  fresh  start  in  life.  The 
Episcopalians  did  not  think  it  wrong  to  dance,  and  Miss 

164 


THE  STORY  OF  MY  CONVERSION        165 

Mamie  was  eager  to  assist  us  in  every  way  in  having  a  good 
time  on  the  Wednesday  night  occasion. 

Meantime  and  perhaps  a  week  previous,  a  Baptist  min- 
ister, M.  Ray,  had  been  holding  a  meeting  at  Tilden  Church 
under  a  brush  arbor.  We  had  reached  almost  the  heat  of 
midsummer,  and  it  was  more  convenient  for  the  good  people 
there  to  meet  out  under  the  arbor,  and  more  pleasant  than  to 
meet  in  the  church  house.  On  this  Sunday  night,  after  we 
had  made  up  the  dance  in  the  afternoon,  I  went  with  Miss 
Mamie  to  this  revival  service.  Neither  of  us  had  any  reli- 
gious impressions  whatsoever.  We  went  to  the  public  gath- 
ering as  young  people  will.  We  sat  far  back,  almost  on  the 
very  last  seat.  The  arbor  was  crowded  with  people.  My 
mother  and  father  were  there,  and  so  were  Brother  Kinchen 
and  his  family,  and  while  Rev.  E.  M.  Weeks  did  not  believe 
in  revival  services,  being  a  very  hard  Hardshell  Baptist, 
my  father  had  never  agreed  with  that  view,  and  so  he  was 
working  in  the  meeting  with  the  other  ministers. 

The  preacher  preached  a  most  earnest  discourse  that 
night — one  of  the  most  impassioned  sermons  to  which  I  have 
ever  listened.  The  great  throng  hung  upon  his  words  with 
breathless  interest.  When  he  had  finished  his  sermon,  he 
called  for  mourners.  Many  came.  He  then  called  for  all 
who  were  interested  in  religion  to  come  forward.  That 
did  not  appeal  to  me  at  all.  I  had  a  desultory  interest  in 
religion,  and  meant  at  some  time  to  become  a  Christian.  That 
had  always  been  my  purpose.  I  felt,  however,  that  a  young 
man  could  not  have  a  good  time  as  a  member  of  the  church, 
and  I  was  deliberately  withholding  any  active  interest  in 
religion  until  I  should  have  married  and  settled  down,  my 
theory  being  that  a  married  man  who  had  gone  through  with 
all  the  dissipations  and  indulgences  of  youth,  could  consist- 
ently be  a  Christian,  while  it  would  be  very  difficult  for  a 
single  man  to  walk  the  narrow  way.  After  these  exercises  had 
been  concluded,   the  earnest  preacher,   still   not  satisfied, 


166       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILKS  CHRONICLE 

looked  in  my  direction,  though  he  never  had  seen  me.    He 
said: 

"  I  am  going  to  make  another  proposition.  I  want  to  know 
if  there  is  in  this  great  throng  a  man  or  woman,  boy  or  girl, 
who,  though  not  now  interested  at  all  in  religion,  expects  at 
some  future  time  to  become  a  Christian." 

I  knew  that  appeal  was  for  me,  because  that  had  always 
been  my  purpose,  and  was  my  purpose  then.  I  turned  to 
Miss  Pickens  and  asked  her  if  she  expected  to  go  and  give 
th^  preacher  her  hand  on  that  last  proposition.  She  shook 
her  head.    I  said : 

"  I  will  be  bound  to  go,  because  I  have  to  be  honest  with 
myself,  and  honest  with  the  preacher.  I  mean  sometime  to 
be  a  Christian,  but  I  do  not  mean  to  be  a  Christian  now." 

She  did  not  try  to  dissuade  me,  although  she  looked  disap- 
pointed that  I  should  be  moved  by  a  sermon  or  by  any  appeal. 
I  arose  and  started  toward  the  minister  to  give  him  my  hand. 
Between  the  time  of  arising  to  act  upon  my  honest  purpose, 
and  the  time  of  reaching  the  preacher,  conviction  seized  upon 
my  soul  as  strong  as  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come.  When 
I  reached  the  preacher,  I  not  only  gave  him  my  hand,  but  I 
knelt  with  the  other  penitents. 

When  the  service  was  over,  I  went  back  to  where  the 
young  lady  sat  and  escorted  her  home.  It  was  a  six-mile 
ride  across  the  country.  It  was  a  bright  moonlight  Sunday 
night.  Between  the  time  of  leaving  her  hospitable  country 
home  and  returning,  a  transformation  as  deep  as  my  very 
soul  had  taken  place  in  me.  I  talked  to  her  about  the  matter 
as  we  journeyed  back.  I  told  her  that  I  would  not  be  at  the 
dance  Wednesday  night,  and  never  intended  to  attend  an- 
other. She  was  much  surprised.  She  had  never  been  thus 
near  to  a  convicted  sinner,  the  religion  of  some  of  our  Epis- 
copalian friends  being  quite  formal,  and  many  of  them  hold- 
ing what  we  call  experimental  religion  in  contempt.    She  was 


THE  STORY  OF  MY  CONVERSION        167 

kind  and  gentle,  and  bade  me  goodbye  regretfully,  as  I  left 
that  night  to  ride  my  homeward  way,  with  the  moon  and 
stars  and  the  arching  sky  as  my  companions. 

My  father  and  mother  had  seen  what  had  happened.  They 
had  not  yet  retired  when  I  reached  home,  although  it  was 
quite  late.  They  were  waiting  for  me.  They  were  in  tears. 
They  were  tears  of  joy  and  gladness,  mingled  with  prayer 
and  hope.  Their  prodigal  boy  had  faced  for  once  toward 
God  and  Heaven.  I  was  not  yet  eighteen.  That  was  July 
and  I  was  to  be  eighteen  in  September.  As  a  young  man,  I 
was  always  older  than  my  years,  and  while  my  years  were 
not  many,  I  had  reached  a  point  in  my  physical  and  mental 
development  far  beyond  boys  of  my  age.  I  was  as  tall  then 
as  I  am  now,  and  really  looked  older.  The  reason  for  this 
was  that  then  I  was  lean  and  cadaverous,  whereas  now  I  am 
full  of  face  and  counted  a  rather  fleshy  man. 

I  did  not  sleep  that  night.  I  spent  the  night  in  prayer  and 
penitence.  All  the  sins  of  my  life  marshalled  before  me  in 
one  heart-rending  panorama.  I  saw  how  forgetful  I  had 
been  of  God,  I  realized  that  I  had  trampled  His  mercies 
under  unhallowed  feet,  that  I  had  been  a  reckless,  outbreak- 
ing lad,  and  had  gone  far  astray  from  the  admonitions  of  my 
father  and  the  counsels  of  my  mother.  The  sermons  I  had 
heard  in  the  years  long  gone  trooped  in  upon  me  and  smote 
me  with  their  truths.  I  remembered  the  time  when  Uncle 
Charles  Galloway  was  baptized,  at  which  time  I  had  a  dis- 
tinct religious  impression.  I  remembered  again  the  night  on 
which  my  father  had  preached  on  the  end  of  time,  when  I 
ran  all  the  way  home,  fearing  the  end  of  the  world  would 
come  before  I  could  reach  my  mother.  I  remembered  an- 
other time  not  hitherto  mentioned  in  this  chronicle,  when  in 
a  room  of  the  home  of  Uncle  Jack  Bellamy  there  was  the 
most  remarkable  demonstration  of  God's  power  that  I  had 
ever  witnessed.    There  were  but  few  present  in  that  room. 


168       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

perhaps  not  over  thirty,  but  the  minister  of  that  night  had 
preached  a  marvelous  sermon,  and  things  eternal  took  hold 
upon  the  assembled  throng.  Wicked  men  fell  and  begged  for 
mercy,  and  Christians  shouted  aloud  for  joy. 

All  of  this  came  before  me  on  that  first  night  when  I  real- 
ized that  I  was  the  chief  of  sinners.  I  had  never  been  a 
criminal  boy,  but  I  had  been  wild,  profane,  reckless,  out- 
breaking and  God- forgetting.  It  all  came  before  me  and  I 
prayed.  I  do  not  know  the  words  of  my  prayers  that  night. 
I  could  not  recall  them.  Many  of  them  found  no  voice.  I 
was  in  an  agony  of  supplication  to  God  for  mercy,  and  I  felt 
that  there  was  no  mercy  for  such  a  sinner  as  I. 

Next  day  I  did  not  go  out  with  the  cattle.  I  went  to  the 
arbor  to  the  meeting.  I  went  forward  immediately  for  prayer 
when  the  opportunity  was  offered.  The  Christians  gathered 
around  me.  God  bless  every  one  who  is  living  now,  and  may 
the  ashes  of  those  who  have  gone  to  God  rest  tranquilly  till 
Jesus  comes !  There  never  is  such  a  welcome  anywhere  as 
greets  the  prodigal  child  on  his  way  back  home.  Those  old- 
time  country  folks,  as  noble  of  heart  as  any  who  ever  lived, 
and  as  near  to  God  as  any  Christian  people  with  whom  it 
has  ever  been  my  pleasure  to  be  acquainted,  prayed  with  me, 
prayed  for  me,  counseled  me,  helped  me,  encouraged  me  and 
assured  me  that  all  would  be  well. 

That  night  was  Monday  night.  I  went  up  again  for  prayer. 
I  remember  little  else.  I  recall  that  after  the  service  was 
over,  having  found  no  peace,  I  had  a  conference  with  my 
brother  and  Jim  Bellamy,  who  had  moved  up  into  that  end 
of  the  world,  and  told  them  that  I  did  not  know  how  the 
matter  would  eventuate.  It  seemed  to  me,  as  I  said  to  them, 
that  my  day  of  grace  had  passed,  but  that  whatever  hap- 
pened, I  would  never  again  be  their  companion  in  the  way  in 
which  we  hitherto  had  lived.  There  were  tears  in  the  eyes 
of  these  boys  as  I  talked  to  them.    It  was  amazing  to  them 


THE  STORY  OF  MY  CONVERSION        169 

that  I,  the  wildest  one  of  the  three,  should  have  been  the 
first  to  heed  the  gospel  call. 

The  second  day  I  did  go  out  with  the  cattle.  I  was  much 
needed  with  them.  I  went  out,  but  my  soul  longed  for  rest 
and  forgiveness  and  peace.  I  doubt  not  that  the  live  oak 
trees  over  between  the  breaks  of  Hog  Creek  and  Middle 
Bosque  where  I  found  refuge  on  that  July  day  of  long  past 
years,  are  still  standing.  I  knelt  me  down  out  there  alone 
with  God.  The  cattle  grazed  quietly  out  under  the  umbra- 
geous trees.  I  poured  out  my  soul  in  prayer  and  begged  for 
mercy.  No  human  eye  saw  me.  No  human  ear  heard  me. 
No  human  heart  beat  in  unison  with  mine,  but  out  there  in 
those  virgin  wilds,  far  from  the  world  and  its  wickedness 
and  pain,  I  pleaded  with  God  to  have  mercy  upon  me,  a  sin- 
ner. That  night  I  went  back  to  the  meeting  again.  I  had 
found  no  rest.  It  had  seemed  an  eternity  since  conviction 
had  seized  upon  my  spirit.  I  went  up  for  prayer  again.  The 
people  sang.  The  people  prayed.  Souls  were  saved.  Chris- 
tians rejoiced.  There  was  happiness  all  around,  but  none  for 
me.  It  was  a  terrible  night — was  that  Tuesday  night  in  that 
July  in  the  long  ago.  Little  sleep  had  come  to  me  since  Sun- 
day night,  and  no  rest  of  mind. 

When  Wednesday  morning  came,  I  was  almost  hopeless, 
but  I  went  out  again  with  the  cattle,  as  I  had  done  the  day 
before,  and  again  I  sought  the  same  copse  of  trees  and  knelt 
there  in  that  hallowed  spot  once  more  and  asked  God  for 
help.  I  felt  that  I  was  ready  to  give  up  all,  but  the  real  hour 
of  self -surrender  had  not  yet  come.  I  drove  the  cattle  in 
when  evening  came.  I  ate  little.  When  the  time  for  service 
canie  around,  I  went  to  the  meeting  again.  It  was  a  bright 
Wednesday  evening,  but  the  shining  stars  had  no  charm  for 
me.  There  was  nothing  on  earth  that  I  sought  but  the  gra- 
cious forgiveness  of  that  God  against  whom  I  had  so  often 
sinned.    I  do  not  remember  what  the  sermon  was  that  night. 


170       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

My  spirit  was  too  far  submerged  in  the  depths  of  its  own 
despair  to  recall  anything  that  happened  until  the  time  came 
for  mourners  to  go  forward  for  prayer.  I  made  my  way  to 
the  anxious  seat,  as  I  had  done  before,  but  instead  of  sitting, 
I  knelt  and  bowed  my  face  in  my  hands.  I  remember  very 
little  that  happened,  until,  after  the  exhortation  the  minister 
asked  that  all  engage  in  prayer.  When  all  had  knelt  and  the 
preacher's  earnest,  eager  voice  was  cleaving  the  skies,  as  he 
begged  for  mercy  for  those  who  were  in  sore  need  of  help, 
my  burden  was  gently  lifted  from  my  heart.  I  had  been  in 
an  agony  of  prayer,  but  when  the  time  of  tranquility  and 
peace  thrilled  my  soul,  the  first  thing  that  my  spirit  said  was : 
"  What  have  you  to  pray  for  now  ?  " 

Soon  the  prayer  was  ended,  and  following  the  prayer,  the 
old-time  song  began : 

"  When  I  can  read  my  title  clear 
To  mansions  in  the  skies, 
I'll  bid  farewell  to  every  fear 
And  wipe  my  weeping  eyes." 

It  was  sung  to  the  tune  of  which  the  following  is  the 
chorus : 

"  Oh,  come,  angel  band, 

Come  and  around  me  stand ! 
Oh,  bear  me  away  on  your  snowy  wings 
To  my  immortal  home  !  " 

I  did  not  kneel  again,  but  I  began  clasping  hands  with 
God's  cherished  saints,  who  quickly  surrounded  me.  They 
saw  that  the  change  had  come.  The  first  man  whose  hand 
grasped  mine  was  Uncle  Samuel  McLendon,  a  Methodist 
steward.  Tears  rained  down  the  dear  old  Christian's  face. 
Then  my  mother  found  me  and  threw  her  arms  around  my 
neck  as  she  shouted  aloud  for  joy.  My  father  came,  and  his 
frame  was  convulsed  with  emotion  as  he  took  me  to  his 
heart. 

That  was  the  happiest  hour  my  life  had  ever  known. 


THE  STORY  OF  MY  CONVERSION        171 

I  had  found  surcease  of  sin  and  pain  and  agony  and  tears, 
and  I  realized  in  its  fulness  the  pardoning  grace  of  God.  I 
did  not  think  then  that  I  would  ever  have  a  doubt  or  fear 
or  sin  as  long  as  I  should  live. 

The  song  ended,  the  Christians  were  dismissed,  but  lin- 
gered near,  and  many  were  the  happy  exclamations  of  joy 
and  peace  and  Christian  love  that  followed  that  service  at 
which  I  gave  my  heart  to  God. 

I  have  had  many  storms  and  tempests  as  I  have  traversed 
life's  fitful  way.  It  has  not  all  been  peace.  It  has  not  all 
been  sunshine.  It  has  not  all  been  joy.  There  have  been 
times  that  in  the  depths  of  my  despair  and  sin  I  have  feared 
that  I  had  never  known  the  Lord.  There  have  been  many 
times,  as  I  have  journeyed  on,  that  I  have  thought  that  I  had 
no  acceptance  with  the  Saviour.  I  remember  well  what  Sam 
Jones  once  said,  and  it  is  partly  true.  He  said  that  a  Chris- 
tian's doubt  is  just  as  deep  as  his  sin.  There  are  other 
things,  however,  besides  the  Christian's  sin,  that  make  him 
doubt.  John  the  Baptist  was  not  a  sinner  in  Castle  Macherus 
when  he  sent  his  disciples  to  Jesus  to  ask  Him  if  He  were  the 
Messiah  or  whether  he  should  look  for  another. 

We  went  home  a  happy  family.  There  was  joy  that  night 
over  one  sinner  that  had  repented.  I  went  to  bed  the  hap- 
piest boy,  I  thought,  that  ever  had  been  blessed  in  the  for- 
giveness of  his  sins.  My  heart  was  singing.  All  nature 
rejoiced.  The  stars,  declaring  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
firmament  showing  His  handiwork,  had  never  seemed  so 
beautiful  as  then.  The  very  trees  sang  together  for  joy. 
There  never  was  as  bright  a  moon  as  shone  down  upon  us 
on  that  happy  summer  night  of  1876. 

The  world  may  cavil  as  it  will.  Skeptics  may  deride  as 
they  will.  Infidels  may  scoff.  It  is  their  wont.  Agnostics 
may  say,  "  I  do  not  know ;  I  doubt."  It  is  their  way.  But 
I  testify  in  this  chronicle — and  I  wish  this  word  to  live  after 
I  am  gone — that  there  is  salvation  through  the  blood  of 


172       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

Christ;  that  it  may  be  had  by  every  sinning  soul  on  earth. 
If  such  a  sinner  as  I  could  find  peace  in  the  Redeemer's  love, 
that  peace  may  be  found  by  every  man,  woman  and  child 
that  lives  upon  the  earth. 

I  testify  also  that  there  is  reality  in  the  religion  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Since  that  hour,  however  far  I  have 
wandered,  however  deep  has  been  my  sin,  however  crucial 
have  been  my  doubts  of  my  acceptance  with  God,  I  have, 
when  the  stilly  hours  of  the  night  have  come,  come  back  to 
the  time  when  I  first  found  Christian  forgiveness  and  joy. 
This  has  been  my  Scripture.  This  has  been  my  guiding  star. 
This  conversion,  which  was  as  real  to  me  as  the  love  of  my 
mother  or  the  gracious  kindness  of  my  father — which,  in- 
deed, to  me  is  the  most  vital  thing  that  ever  came  into  my 
life — ^has  lived  to  bring  me  back  from  my  wanderings,  what- 
e\^r  they  have  been. 

All  of  us  have  preached  on  the  prodigal  son,  and  have 
referred  to  him  as  a  wandering  sinner.  But  my  heart's  faith 
and  belief  is  that  the  prodigal  son  was  a  wandering  Chris- 
tian, who  went  away  from  his  God,  leaving  his  father's 
house  and  going  out  afar  into  the  enemy's  land  to  feed  upon 
the  husks  that  the  swine  did  eat.  But  the  prodigal  Christian 
always  returns.  You  have  had  your  time  of  wandering. 
You,  it  may  be,  have  gone  very  far  away,  but  that  same  great 
God  to  whom  you  bowed,  and  to  whom  you  gave  your  heart 
in  the  long  ago,  sends  His  Spirit  after  you,  and  that  same 
Redeemer  whom  you  loved  in  that  first  hour  of  your  accept- 
ance with  God,  is  exalted  at  the  right  hand  of  God  as  a 
Prince  and  a  Saviour,  where  He  ever  maketh  intercession 
for  us  who  are  left  down  here  to  struggle  with  the  sins  and 
temptations  and  beguilements  of  the  world. 


XXIII 
BAPTISM  AND  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP 

FOR  three  days  I  was  celestially  happy.  I  had  passed 
through  the  crucible  of  penitence  and  tears,  and 
had  found  perfect  peace  in  Christ's  forgiving  love. 
For  three  days  I  sinned  not,  nor  did  I  believe  then  that  I 
would  ever  sin  again.  The  nights  were  the  happiest  I  had 
ever  known,  and  the  days  the  brightest.  I  worked  in  the 
meeting  constantly,  and  on  the  following  Sunday  I  offered 
myself  for  membership  in  the  little  Hardshell  Baptist  Church 
at  Tilden.  The  church-house  stood  very  near  the  arbor 
under  which  I  had  given  my  heart  to  my  Redeemer. 

It  was  a  bright  and  glorious  July  Sabbath.  The  attend- 
ance at  the  little  church  was  large.  The  house  was  full. 
While  I  was  greatly  embarrassed  in  many  ways,  I  had  en- 
listed under  the  banner  of  the  Lord,  and  I  went  forward 
with  steady  step,  though  with  tearful  eye,  when  the  doors 
of  the  church  were  opened.  The  old-time  Hardshell  breth- 
ren believed,  as  I  believed  then  and  still  believe,  that  a  saved 
man  or  woman  who  offers  for  membership  in  a  Baptist 
church  should  give  a  reason  for  the  hope  that  thrills  the 
soul.  I  was  asked  to  relate  to  the  assembled  multitude  my 
Christian  experience.  That  I  did  as  best  I  could.  It  was 
with  great  imperfection  and  much  halting  of  speech,  but  I 
knew  whom  I  had  believed,  and  I  had  that  boldness  of  faith 
which  gave  me  courage  to  tell  the  story  of  my  journey  from 
darkness  into  light,  and  from  sin  into  newness  of  life. 

Many  were  the  hearty  handgrasps  when,  after  a  unani- 
mous vote  for  my  reception,  opportunity  was  given  for  those 

178 


174       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

who  were  to  extend  me  church  and  Christian  fellowship  to 
come  forward.  My  dear  father  and  mother  were  there,  and 
I  believe  as  I  look  back  upon  it,  after  the  lapse  of  these 
almost  two  score  of  eventful  years,  that  it  was  the  happiest 
Sabbath  they  had  known  since  I  was  born. 

We  did  not  have  the  baptizing  that  day.  It  was  left  for 
the  following  Sabbath.  In  the  meantime,  the  meeting  at 
the  brush  arbor  had  closed.  The  Missionary  Baptist  church 
located  there,  received  a  large  increase  in  its  membership, 
and  there  were  a  number  of  others  to  join  the  Hardshell 
church.  The  leading  Missionary  Baptist  of  the  neighbor- 
hood was  my  beloved  friend,  J.  P.  Kinchen,  who  was  then 
a  deacon  of  the  church  and  a  man  who  stood  high  in  the 
esteem  of  his  fellow  church  members  and  of  the  people  at 
large.  He  and  his  beloved  wife  were  especially  kind  to  me. 
They  held  no  prejudice  against  the  Hardshell  Baptists,  and 
theirs  was  an  unmixed  joy  when  I  came  into  the  fold. 
Among  all  the  sympathizers  and  well-wishers  that  I  knew 
in  that  first  glow  of  my  young  Christian  life,  I  had  none 
who  were  kinder  or  more  helpful  than  J.  P.  Kinchen  and  his 
dear,  sweet  wife. 

Between  the  two  Sundays  I  was  plunged  into  the  depths 
of  sorrow  and  despair.  My  walk  with  God  seemed  to  have 
abruptly  terminated.  Unlike  the  recital  told  by  the  sweet 
little  child,  who  was  relating  in  her  own  language  the  story 
of  Enoch,  I  did  not  take  a  long  walk  with  God.  She  said 
that  God  and  Enoch  took  very  long,  long  walks  together; 
that  in  these  walks  Enoch  would  go  with  God  on  nearer  and 
yet  nearer  to  Heaven,  and  that  one  day  they  got  so  close  to 
Heaven  in  that  long,  long  walk  that  God  said  to  Enoch, 
"  You  just  come  on  now  and  go  with  me  to  Heaven,  because 
it  is  nearer  to  Heaven  than  it  is  back  to  where  you  live." 
My  experience  in  this  sad  time  of  my  first  conscious  sin 
after  my  conversion  was  so  different  from  that  of  Enoch's 
that  it  almost  broke  my  heart.    I  felt  that  my  fault  was  irrep- 


BAPTISM  AND  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP  175 

arable,  but,  as  has  been  the  case  ten  thousand  times  since 
then,  my  sin  drove  me  to  my  knees  and  prostrated  me  in  the 
dust  and  ashes  of  penitence  and  tears.  I  feared  that  I  should 
not  be  baptized,  but  after  praying  out  of  my  broken  heart 
for  God's  forgiving  love,  I  again  found  peace.  The  battle 
had  begun — the  battle  between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh — the 
battle  that  is  as  old  as  the  old,  old  fashion  death — the  battle 
that  shall  endure  until  life's  last  conscious  moment  ends, 
and  my  eyes  are  closed  in  their  last  earthly  sleep. 

The  next  Sunday  was  one  of  the  brightest  days  I  ever 
knew.  As  these  words  are  penned,  I  can  see  the  long,  long 
procession  of  those  dear  country  folk  as  they  journeyed  to 
Hurst  Spring  to  witness  the  baptizing  service.  Hurst  Spring 
bursts  out  of  the  virgin  rock  at  the  head  of  Hog  Creek  and 
sends  forth  its  pellucid  waters  laughing  toward  the  sea. 
Hard  by  the  fountain-head  of  this  gentle  stream  there  is  a 
lake  some  twenty  or  thirty  feet  wide  and  some  seventy-five 
to  one  hundred  feet  long.  It  is  the  first  lake  of  the  little 
stream.  On  that  bright  July  day  it  was  as  clear  as  crystal, 
as  it  mirrored  the  smiling  heavens  in  its  laughing  waves. 
The  pastor  of  the  little  Hardshell  Baptist  church  was  Rev. 
E.  M.  Weeks,  but  my  father's  dearest  friend  in  the  Hard- 
shell Baptist  ministry  was  Rev.  Willis  Russell,  who  lived  in 
Bosque  County,  some  twenty  miles  away.  He  came  up  at 
my  father's  request  to  baptize  my  father's  son. 

A  great  crowd  had  gathered — one  of  the  largest  I  have 
ever  witnessed  at  a  country  baptismal  service.  I  never  can 
forget  the  sacredness  of  that  solemn  hour.  The  Mission- 
ary Baptist  brotherhood  were  there  in  force.  Many  Meth- 
odists, who  believed  that  burial  in  water  was  Christian  bap- 
tism, had  also  come  to  witness  the  impressive  scene. 

At  last  my  time  for  thus  obeying  my  Redeemer  came.  The 
noble-hearted  preacher  took  me  by  the  hand  and  led  me  into 
the  middle  of  the  stream.  His  was  an  impressive  figure. 
Although  he  was  a  man  of  little  literary  education,  he  was 


176       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

wonderfully  versed  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  the  able  and 
impressive  sermons  that  I  heard  him  preach  in  those  first 
years  of  my  Christian  life,  linger  in  my  memory  and  arc 
cherished  in  my  heart  this  day.  After  he  had  raised  his 
hand  to  Heaven  and  had  invoked  the  blessings  of  God,  I 
was  buried  with  Christ  in  baptism  "  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

I  was  happier  then,  if  it  could  have  been,  than  I  was  when 
I  first  gave  my  heart  to  Christ.  I,  indeed,  arose  to  walk  in 
newness  of  life. 

"Heaven  came  down  my  soul  to  greet, 
And  glory  crowned  the  mercy  seat." 

It  was  an  epoch  that  no  soul  saved  by  Jesus*  blood  can 
ever  forget. 

As  I  reached  the  banks  of  the  stream,  happy-hearted 
Christians  gathered  round  me,  and  grasped  my  willing  hand. 
Tears  were  coursing  down  many  radiant  faces,  and  in  all 
my  life  I  have  never  known  a  happier  hour  than  the  hour 
when  I  thus  publicly  put  on  Christ  in  baptism,  and  enrolled 
under  the  stainless  banner  of  King  Immanuel. 

As  I  have  journeyed  on  in  the  dust  and  conflict  of  life's 
stern  way,  there  have  been  enemies  to  question  the  validity 
of  my  baptism.  For  my  own  self,  I  have  never  for  one 
moment  questioned  it.  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to 
go  through  the  form  of  a  re-baptism.  While,  as  I  have  here 
related,  I  was  immersed  by  a  Hardshell  Baptist  minister, 
through  the  authority  of  a  Hardshell  Baptist  church,  I  be- 
lieve the  baptism  was  entirely  scriptural  and  in  every  way 
valid.  I  would  not,  under  any  circumstances,  allow  any  of 
these  adverse  criticisms  to  influence  me  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree to  repudiate  that  holy  ceremony  which  inducted  me 
into  a  local  Baptist  church  in  that  happy  youthtime  hour. 

While  on  this  subject,  I  take  pleasure  here  in  quoting  a 
paragraph  from  the  immortal  address  by  Dr.  B.  H.  Carroll, 
delivered  at  the  Southern  Baptist  Convention  at  the  session 


BAPTISM  AND  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP  177 

which  convened  in  Hot  Springs  in  1890.  Concerning  the 
different  kinds  of  Baptists,  he  uses  these  very  significant 
and  impressive  words : 

"  Time  fails  me  to  tell  the  wondrous  story  of  Baptist 
progress  in  Virginia — of  their  great  revivals,  their  preach- 
ers and  their  sufferings.  A  notable  and  far-reaching  event 
in  their  history  was  the  happy  union  of  the  Separate  and 
Regular  Baptists  under  the  title  of  the  United  Baptist 
Churches  of  Christ  in  Virginia.  Writing  in  1809,  Robert 
Semple,  the  historian  of  Virginia  Baptists,  gives  a  graphic 
account  of  this  union  which  occurred  twenty-two  years  be- 
fore. Throughout  the  Southern  States  the  same  union  was 
accomplished,  culminating  in  Kentucky  one  year  ago.  I 
have  myself  seen  old  church  letters  of  the  three  varieties — 
Separate,  Regular  and  United,  and  counted  all  of  them 
valid." 

Following  my  baptism,  I  began  such  active  Christian 
work  as  was  possible  under  Hardshell  Baptist  auspices. 
These  dear  people  have  no  Sunday-schools,  and  nothing  be- 
yond the  midweek  prayer  meeting  and  the  usual  Sunday 
services.  Sad  to  say,  as  I  have  indicated  in  an  early  chap- 
ter of  this  chronicle,  their  Sunday  services  are  sometimes 
very  long,  but  they  are  always  impressive.  I  began  at  once 
to  take  up  my  cross  as  best  I  could  and  to  follow  my  Saviour 
in  every  avenue  of  usefulness  that  opened  to  me. 

When  I  attended  the  first  prayer  meeting,  there  were  a 
number  of  the  new  converts  present,  and  Deacon  John  Bul- 
lock, Elder  E.  M.  Weeks,  together  with  my  father  and  oth- 
ers of  the  members  of  the  church,  thought  that  the  young 
Christians  should  be  placed  in  harness  promptly.  To  that 
end,  Tom  Miller,  one  of  the  new  converts,  and  the  son  of 
another  Hardshell  Baptist  preacher,  was  called  upon  to 
pray.    I  think  I  have  never  heard  a  more  rambling  petition. 

It  was  not  quite  so  bad  as  the  prayer  of  which  W.  W. 
Landrum  told  in  the  1889  session  of  the  Southern  Baptist 


178       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

Convention.  Dr.  Landrum  said  that  in  his  early  years  he 
knew  a  good  old  Baptist  preacher  who  was  very  lengthy  in 
his  prayers.  He  prayed  for  everybody  and  everything,  and 
repeated  it  over  and  over  again.  Upon  one  occasion,  after 
having  prayed  for  the  work  at  home,  the  work  abroad,  home 
missions,  foreign  missions,  education  and  every  other  con- 
ceivable thing,  together  with  the  forgiveness  of  everybody's 
sins,  he  ended : 

"  And  now,  O  Lord,  bless  those  foreign  lands  where  the 
foot  of  man  has  never  trod  and  the  eye  of  God  has  never 
seen!'* 

Tom  Miller's  prayer  was  not  so  comprehensive,  but  it  was 
halting  and  to  the  last  degree  lame  and  blundering.  As  I 
knelt  there  listening  to  his  effort,  I  said  in  my  heart  that  if 
I  couldn't  beat  Tom  Miller  praying,  I  certainly  never  would 
try.  To  my  amazement  and  consternation,  after  the  next 
song  was  sung.  Deacon  John  Bullock,  who  was  leading  the 
prayer-meeting,  asked  me  to  pray.  All  knelt.  That  was  the 
good  old-fashioned  country,  Hardshell  Baptist,  Christian, 
Christly  way.  When  I  knelt  and  tried  to  open  my  mouth, 
my  lips  were  absolutely  glued  together.  I  could  think  of 
nothing  but  my  mental  criticism  of  Tom  Miller's  prayer. 
Finally,  after  some  five  minutes  of  awed  and  horrifying 
silence,  I  turned  to  Brother  Bullock  and  asked  him  to  lead 
in  prayer,  which  he  did.  I  have  oftentimes  criticised  ser- 
mons since  that  night,  but  insofar  as  I  have  been  able,  I 
have  refrained  from  criticising  any  man's  praying.  That 
cured  me. 

Coincident  with  my  conversion  and  baptism,  I  received  a 
distinct  impression  that  I  must  be  a  minister.  I  had  no  audi- 
ble call  to  preach,  but  the  impression  that  I  must  preach  was 
so  strong  upon  me  that  I  felt  bound  to  communicate  that 
burden  to  other  Christian  friends.  First  of  all,  I  talked  to 
others  who  had  been  converted  in  the  same  meeting  in  which 
I  was  saved.    I  thought  it  possible  that  all  young  Christians 


BAPTISM  AND  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP  179 

had  the  same  impression  that  had  come  to  me.  I  found, 
however,  upon  inquiry  that  such  was  not  the  case.  The  dis- 
tinct impression  or  call  to  the  ministry  had  not  come  to  any 
others  of  the  young  Christians  who  joined  the  church  with 
me.  I  talked  to  the  young  men  of  the  Missionary  Baptist 
church  there,  as  well  as  to  the  new  members  of  the  church 
of  which  I  was  a  member,  always  with  the  same  result. 

Very  soon,  acting  upon  my  convictions,  I  laid  the  matter 
before  the  church  of  which  I  was  a  member.  It  was  with 
great  distrust  and  with  much  fear  and  trembling  that  I  arose 
in  conference  in  October  following,  and  told  the  simple 
story  of  God*s  dealings  with  my  soul.  The  conference  was 
greatly  impressed.  Some  were  much  surprised.  My  father 
and  mother  were  not,  because  I  had  talked  the  matter  over 
with  them  before  presenting  it  to  the  church.  In  their  good, 
old-time,  Christian,  quiet  way  the  church  liberated  me  to 
preach  the  gospel. 

There  I  was,  just  past  eighteen,  an  uncouth,  obscure  coun- 
try lad,  unequipped  with  either  literary  or  expert  training 
of  any  kind,  but,  true  to  my  sense  of  duty  to  God,  I  had 
cast  my  all  upon  Him  and  signified  my  willingness  to  go  out 
into  the  great  world  and  bear  testimony  to  His  love. 

There  was  no  income  possible  to  a  Hardshell  Baptist 
preacher,  because  they  do  not  support  their  ministry.  The 
result  was  that  I  had  to  look  elsewhere  for  a  livelihood,  so, 
very  soon,  finding  it  unnecessary  longer  to  linger  with  my 
father's  cattle,  I  journeyed  to  the  North  Bosque  valley  near 
Clifton,  Texas,  and  offered  my  services  to  Uncle  Billy  Kemp 
as  a  cotton  picker.  His  farm  was  the  first  one  below  Clif- 
ton. It  was  a  beautiful  body  of  splendid  rich  land,  and  the 
cotton  picking  was  excellent.  The  price  was  a  dollar  a  hun- 
dred, the  cotton  picker  boarding  himself.  It  was  an  exceed- 
ingly pleasant  as  well  as  a  profitable  employment.  We 
camped  out,  and  there  were  a  number  of  other  cotton  pick- 
ers there,  so  that  time  did  not  hang  heavy  upon  our  hands. 


180       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

I  did  not  linger  there  very  long,  but  made  clear  $io  a  week 
and  felt  very  happy  in  the  work.  As  opportunity  offered, 
I  did  such  Christian  work  as  I  could,  and  sought  in  all  ways 
to  magnify  the  profession  of  religion  which  I  had  made. 

Before  going  down  to  Mr.  Kemp's  farm  to  pick  cotton, 
father  had  selected  a  sweetheart  for  me.  It  was  most  auspi- 
cious in  some  ways,  but  the  experiment  did  not  eventuate 
with  sufficient  success  to  justify  its  repetition.  At  the  same 
time  I  was  converted,  a  magnificent  young  woman.  Miss 
Josie  Johnson,  also  came  into  the  light,  and  immediately 
thereafter  joined  the  Missionary  Baptist  church.  She  came 
of  a  fine  family.  They  belonged  to  the  old-time,  quiet 
Southern  country  folk,  and  she  was  an  unusually  bright, 
cheerful,  amiable  and  attractive  young  woman.  She  was 
about  my  age,  a  perfect  blonde,  with  laughing  blue  eyes, 
and  a  heart  as  light  and  happy  as  one  could  find  in  a  long 
day's  journey.  My  father  was  very  solicitous  that  I  should 
fall  in  love  with  Miss  Josie,  and,  anxious  to  please  him,  I 
made  it  a  part  of  my  weekly  and  semi-weekly  business  to 
visit  her  home.  We  went  to  the  camp-meetings  together,  I 
was  a  frequent  caller  at  regular  and  irregular  intervals,  and 
while  we  were  never  engaged  to  be  married,  I  held  her  in 
the  very  highest  esteem.  When  I  went  down  to  Uncle 
Billy  Kemp's  farm  to  pick  cotton,  I  carried  her  picture  in 
my  pocket  and  it  then  seemed  to  me  that  one  day  I  would  ask 
her  to  become  my  wife. 

Digressing  slightly  here,  I  must  finish  this  story  of  my 
second  love  afifair.  The  following  spring  I  went  down  to 
Crawford  and  took  a  country  school,  more  of  which  here- 
after. I  was  unhappy  in  some  ways  because  I  feared  that 
I  had  made  the  distinct  impression  upon  Miss  Josie's  mind 
that  I  was  in  love  with  her,  and  I  felt  sure  that  it  was  my 
duty  to  so  back  to  Coryell  County  and  marry  her.  Suiting 
the  action  to  my  conscience,  I  wrote  Miss  Josie  the  follow- 


BAPTISM  AND  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP   181 

ing  summer  that  I  was  coming  up  on  a  certain  Sunday  to 
visit  her.  It  was  more  than  twenty  miles  across  the  coun- 
try. I  rode  faithful  "  Old  Ball,"  the  horse  that  had  been  one 
of  my  mounts  as  we  drove  the  beef  cattle  up  the  old  Chis- 
holm  beef  trail.  Arriving  at  the  Johnson  home  at  about  I 
p.  M.^  I  found  that  they  were  just  ready  for  dinner.  After 
the  meal  was  over,  I  felt  sure  that  Miss  Josie,  broken- 
hearted as  she  must  be  on  my  account,  would  give  me  an 
opportunity  to  make  due  amends  for  my  neglect.  I  was 
ready  to  declare  my  love,  to  ask  her  to  become  my  wife,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  beg  her  pardon  for  having  gone  away 
without  first  winning  her  promise  to  marry  me.  Two 
o'clock  came,  half  past  two  o'clock  came,  but  Miss  Josie 
lingered  in  the  big  front  sitting  room  with  the  old  folks,  en- 
gaging in  general  conversation.  It  was  all  mysterious  to 
me,  because  I  was  perfectly  sure  that  she  loved  me  deeply 
and  must  have  suffered  agonies  of  grief  on  account  of  my 
departure  from  the  Hog  Creek  country. 

About  three  o'clock  a  visitor  came,  in  the  person  of  a  little 
sawed-off,  but  altogether  amiable  and  splendid  young  man, 
named  John  Williamson.  His  legs  were  barely  long  enough 
to  reach  the  ground.  I  had  known  John  in  the  Hog  Creek 
country  days  and  esteemed  him  highly.  I  never  thought  he 
was  destined  to  set  the  world  on  fire,  unless  he  should  strike 
a  match  at  the  mouth  of  a  gas  well,  but  at  the  same  time 
he  was  a  splendid  fellow,  and  one  whom  any  girl  might  be 
glad  to  number  among  her  admirers.  Very  soon  after  John 
came  in,  the  whole  situation  dawned  upon  me.  Absence 
had  made  dear  Josie's  soul  grow  fonder — of  John,  of  which 
I  was  really  and  truly  glad.  I  had  lived  up  to  my  sense  of 
duty,  had  found  my  old  sweetheart  with  a  heart  not  even 
phased,  and  with  a  lover  entirely  worthy  of  her  and  one  that 
three  weeks  later  was  to  make  her  a  loyal  and  loving  hus- 
band. 


182       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

I  soon  saddled  "  Old  Ball,"  bade  Brother  and  Sister  John- 
son, Miss  Josie  Johnson  and  my  dear  friend,  John  William- 
son, a  fond  adieu,  and  rode  back  toward  my  Crawford 
school  a  somewhat  wiser  man.  After  that,  I  was  not  so 
egotistical.  I  never  again  thought  that  a  girl  was  broken- 
heartedly  in  love  with  me  simply  because  I  had  been  allowed 
to  escort  her  once  or  twice  to  a  camp-meeting. 


XXIV 

ODDS  AND  ENDS  OF  EVENTS,  CLOSING  THE 
YEAR  1876 

ONLY  two  or  three  events  are  of  sufficient  import- 
ance to  merit  notice  in  this  chronicle  as  having 
further  to  do  with  the  memorable  year  of  1876. 
One  of  these  was  my  visit  to  Gates ville  in  the  autumn  of 
that  year,  at  which  point  I  met  Dr.  McMullen,  a  blind  phre- 
nologist. I  had  never  lost  interest  in  the  science  of  charac- 
ter reading.  As  opportunity  offered,  I  had  kept  up  my 
studies,  both  of  medicine  and  phrenology.  As  has  been  told, 
father  began  to  practice  medicine  in  the  Hog  Creek  country, 
and  while  his  practice  was  never  so  large  nor  so  remuner- 
ative there  as  it  had  been  in  the  old  Bastrop  County  home, 
he  did  some  considerable  work,  and  I  maintained  my  study 
of  medical  science  and  practice.  At  the  same  time,  I  read 
with  avidity  every  book  that  I  could  secure  upon  the  science 
of  phrenology,  and  everything  touching  upon  that  subject 
challenged  my  deepest  interest  and  consideration. 

Going  to  Gatesville  on  other  business,  I  found  the  town 
placarded  with  the  announcement  that  Dr.  McMullen,  the 
blind  phrenologist,  was  there,  and  was  prepared  to  make 
phrenological  examinations,  and  give  written  charts.  I  did 
not  have  a  dollar  in  my  pocket,  but  I  was  wearing  a  ring 
that  belonged  to  a  very  near  and  dear  relative.  I  knew  that 
it  would  be  all  right  for  me  to  pledge  this  ring  for  enough 
money  with  which  to  secure  a  chart,  so  I  went  to  the  drug- 
gist of  the  town,  Y.  S.  Jenkins,  who  in  later  years  proved 
to  be  one  of  my  dearest  friends,  and  pawned  the  ring  to  him 

183 


184       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

for  the  loan  of  $2.50.  He  was  reluctant  to  take  the  ring,  but 
I  was  a  stranger  to  him,  and  if  he  hadn't  taken  the  ring  he 
would  have  been  very  reluctant  to  lend  me  the  money.  I 
told  him  very  frankly  who  I  was,  and  what  I  wanted  with 
the  money.  He  told  me  to  bring  the  money  next  time  I 
came  to  town,  and  secure  my  ring. 

I  was  exceedingly  happy  when  I  found  that  I  could  get 
this  money,  and  I  hastened  to  Dr.  McMullen's  room  to  have 
my  head  examined.  He  was  a  very  brilliant  man.  He  had 
been  blind  nearly  all  his  life,  but  so  expert  was  he  in  the 
Knowledge  of  phrenological  science  that  he  made  examina- 
tions as  aptly  and  accurately,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  as  had 
Dr.  Bellows,  of  an  earlier  time.  He  was  planning  to  journey 
through  the  country,  and  after  I  had  explained  to  him  my 
keen  interest  in  phrenology,  he  suggested  an  arrangement 
by  which  we  could  be  mutually  helpful.  He  said  that  if  I 
would  furnish  the  team  and  the  vehicle  and  drive  the  team, 
thus  journeying  with  him  and  helping  him  to  advertise  and 
exploit  his  lectures,  he  would  give  me  the  benefit  of  his 
superior  knowledge  of  the  science,  and  we  would  divide  the 
proceeds  equally.  That  looked  to  me  like  a  splendid  oppor- 
tunity for  enlarging  my  store  of  knowledge  and  experience, 
so  I  hastened  back  to  the  Hog  Creek  country,  told  my  father 
of  the  status  of  affairs,  and  he  at  once  interested  himself  in 
assisting  me  to  secure  the  team  and  the  hack  with  which 
to  carry  out  the  plan. 

I  already  had  "  Old  Ball."  He  was  not  only  a  splendid 
saddle  horse,  but  a  good  harness  horse  as  well.  I  bought 
another  horse  from  my  father;  he  helped  me  to  rig  up  a 
hack  and  harness,  and  I  informed  Dr.  McMullen  that  I  was 
ready  to  begin  the  work.  At  this  juncture,  an  unforeseen 
event  occurred.  John  Barleycorn  intervened,  and  utterly 
destroyed  our  plans.  Dr.  McMullen  was  a  periodic  drunk- 
ard, and  as  soon  as  he  had  secured  sufficient  funds  from  his 
Gatesville  work,  he  plunged  into  a  long  and  disappointing 


CLOSING  THE  YEAR  1876  185 

spree.  The  result  was  that  after  having  prepared  myself  to 
take  up  this  work,  the  plan  failed,  and  I  was  forced  to  turn 
my  attention  to  other  things.  Meantime,  I  had  made  the 
journey  to  Uncle  Billy  Kemp's  farm,  and  had  spent  a  month 
©r  so  in  picking  cotton,  so  that  when  the  winter  of  1876  was 
ushered  in,  I  was  still  at  home  with  my  father,  but  without 
fixed  occupation  of  any  kind. 

A  little  prior  to  this  time,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Joe 
A.  Lee,  who  was  a  Missionary  Baptist  preacher  and  school 
teacher.  He  had  married  a  distant  cousin  of  mine — a  very 
sweet,  amiable  young  girl.  He  was  much  her  senior,  but 
he  loved  her  tenderly,  and  they  had  begun  their  married 
life  at  Parks'  school  house  near  Turnersville.  It  was  some 
eight  miles  from  the  Hog  Creek  country  to  the  Parks  school 
house,  but  inasmuch  as  we  were  thus  related  to  each  other, 
we  became  acquainted,  and  our  acquaintance  speedily  rip- 
ened into  a  warm  and  enduring  friendship.  Joe  Lee  was 
teaching  the  school  at  the  Parks  school  house,  so  in  Decem- 
ber of  1876,  when  he  found  it  necessary  to  take  a  short 
vacation,  he  induced  me  to  come  to  Parks  school  house 
neighborhood  and  teach  the  little  school  while  he  was  absent. 
This  was  my  first  introduction  to  pedagogy,  of  which  I  had 
considerable  experience  in  the  two  years  following. 

I  taught  the  school  but  a  few  days,  but  the  experience, 
even  of  that  short  period,  was  of  great  value  to  me.  I  found 
that  I  liked  teaching,  and  I  had  always  loved  children  of 
every  age  and  condition  of  life.  I  found  that  the  children 
were  easy  to  control,  and  that  they  loved  me. 

Having  become  acquainted  with  the  citizens  of  the  Parks 
school  house  community,  and  having  talked  with  Mr.  Buster 
and  others  concerning  phrenology,  I  was  solicited  to  deliver 
some  lectures  on  that  subject.  Thus  far  I  had  never  ap- 
peared in  public  except  in  a  prayer  meeting  talk  or  two,  but 
I  was  reasonably  conversant  with  the  science  of  phrenology, 
and  while  I  had  not  been  privileged  to  sit  at  the  feet  for 


186       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

any  length  of  time  of  any  great  phrenologist,  I  had  absorbed 
Samuel  R.  Wells'' How  to  Read  Character,  and  had  famil- 
iarized myself  with  Fowler's  System  of  Phrenology.  I  had 
also  read  Combe's  Constitution  of  Man  and  Moral  Philoso- 
phy, and  had  dipped  somewhat  into  the  works  of  Nelson 
Sizer,  who,  while  not  a  voluminous  writer,  was  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  old-time  phrenologists. 

My  lectures  were  duly  announced  in  the  school,  Joe  A. 
Lee,  the  teacher,  having  returned,  and  on  the  first  evening 
on  which  I  was  billed  to  appear,  I  was  surprised  to  find 
the  little  school  house  filled  with  people.  It  would  hold  per- 
haps two  hundred  auditors,  and  they  were  there.  There 
is  something  remarkable  about  phrenology.  Whenever  a 
man  who  is  reputed  to  be  at  all  versed  in  the  science  an- 
nounces a  lecture,  he  always  finds  hearers.  We  naturally 
love  to  have  ourselves  talked  about  in  the  right  way,  and 
while  phrenologists  owe  it  to  themselves  and  to  their  sub- 
jects to  be  true  and  faithful,  they  are  never  over  veracious 
in  giving  the  faults  of  the  volunteer  subjects  who  come  for- 
ward for  examination. 

My  first  lecture  was  on  the  temperaments.  In  the  old 
division  of  temperaments  there  were  four — the  Nervous, 
Sanguine,  Bilious  and  Lymphatic.  At  a  later  time,  the 
phrenologists  renamed  them,  and  reduced  the  number  to 
three — the  Motive,  Mental  and  Vital.  After  the  lecture, 
some  four  subjects  came  forward  for  free  examinations, 
and  I  also  had  a  number  ask  me  where  I  would  be  the  fol- 
lowing day,  so  that  they  might  pay  for  examinations.  I 
charged  50c  for  each  examination  and  $2  for  a  written 
chart. 

While  the  business  there  was  not  overwhelmingly  or  sen- 
sationally great,  it  was  a  beginning — my  very  first  start  in 
independent  public  work.  I  lectured  there  five  nights,  and 
the  denizens  of  that  far  away  community  seemed  pleased 
at  the  result. 


CLOSING  THE  YEAR  1876  187 

The  remaining  days  of  1876  were  uneventful.  After  my 
successful  lecture  experience  at  Parks  school  house,  I  went 
back  to  my  father's  home  on  Hog  Creek,  and  renewed  my 
service  with  him  in  caring  for  his  cattle.  It  had  been  a 
prosperous  season  with  the  herd.  There  had  been  a  sub- 
stantial increase,  and  my  father  was  getting  on  his  feet 
most  happily  in  the  new-found  home. 

Thus  ended  the  most  eventful  year  of  my  young  man- 
hood. I  look  back  upon  it  now  as  a  year  fraught  with  more 
far-reaching  consequences  than  any  I  had  known.  We  had 
moved  to  the  new  country,  I  had  known  my  first  great  shock 
and  sorrow,  I  had  become  a  Christian,  I  had  been  licensed  to 
preach,  I  had. become  a  public  lecturer,  and  I  had  reached 
the  ripe  age  of  eighteen  years. 

I  was  older  for  my  years  than  most  young  men.  I  was 
lean  and  cadaverous  at  that  period  of  my  life,  and  I  looked 
older,  I  believe,  than  I  look  now.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  had 
entered  really  upon  life's  serious  things,  and  thus  with  the 
opening  of  1877,  I  confronted  a  new  and  distinct  line  of 
endeavor. 


XXV 

AS  A  COUNTRY  SCHOOL  TEACHER 

DURING  January  of  1877,  my  brother,  Dr.  T.  E. 
Cranfill,  who  had  secured  a  license  to  practice 
medicine,  moved  from  the  Hog  Creek  country  down 
to  Crawford,  McLennan  County.  Crawford  is  some  twenty 
miles  west  of  Waco.  It  was  then  a  small  country  vil- 
lage, consisting  of  two  stores,  a  school  house,  a  blacksmith 
shop,  a  little  tavern  kept  by  Mr.  Robinson  and  his  wife,  a 
post  office  and  a  little  drug  store.  I  never  knew  why  my 
brother  moved  down  there,  but  because  of  his  going,  I  went 
down  about  the  middle  of  March  to  visit  him.  The  school, 
taught  by  John  H.  Gouldy,  was  nearing  its  close.  They 
were  rehearsing  for  the  exhibition.  I  decided  soon  after 
reaching  Crawford  to  lecture  on  phrenology.  My  brother 
happily  fell  into  the  plan,  and  in  talking  to  the  teacher  of 
the  school,  who  soon  became  my  warm  friend,  and  is  to  this 
day,  I  found  him  enthusiastic  on  the  subject,  so  we  adver- 
tised a  series  of  lectures,  announcing  them  through  the 
medium  of  the  school,  and  posting  notices  at  the  post  office, 
the  tavern,  and  one  or  two  other  public  places. 

When  I  went  to  give  my  first  lecture,  I  found,  as  I  had 
found  at  the  Parks  school  house,  that  I  looked  into  the  faces 
of  a  very  intelligent  audience,  and  that  the  school  room  was 
practically  filled  with  people.  I  began  as  I  had  begun  before, 
but  being  more  certain  of  myself,  and  having  had  a  taste  of 
genuine  success  in  that  field  of  endeavor,  I  began  the  work 
more  aggressively  and  more  hopefully.  Besides  all  that,  I 
was  some  three  months  older,  and  during  these  three  months 

188 


AS  A  COUNTRY  SCHOOL  TEACHER   189 

I  had  spent  my  time  in  study,  and  in  further  preparation 
for  this  work,  as  well  as  for  my  future  career  as  a  practi- 
tioner of  medicine. 

I  would  not  have  you  understand  that  I  had  abandoned 
the  plan  of  being  a  minister.  I  still  talked  in  public  as  a 
preacher  as  occasion  offered,  but  inasmuch  as  that  yielded 
me  no  income,  and  as  inasmuch  as  I  was  wholly  upon  my 
own  resources.  I  found  it  necessary  to  take  up  the  work  of 
lecturing  on  phrenology  in  order  to  win  my  bread. 

On  the  second  evening  of  the  lecture,  I  noticed  in  the 
audience  a  shy,  but  winsome  maiden,  who  quietly  walked 
down  the  aisle  toward  the  front,  and  who  in  many  ways  im- 
mediately challenged  my  attention.  I  do  not  remember  the 
kind  of  dress  she  wore.  I  have  never  been  an  adept  in  the 
delineation  of  feminine  costume.  I  am  not  a  connoisseur 
in  matters  of  this  sort,  nor  am  I  a  judge  of  the  delicate  shad- 
ings and  blendings  of  colors.  What  I  do  remember  about 
this  maiden  is  that  she  had  on  a  sailor  hat,  and  that  in  every 
way  she  was  the  type  of  girl  that  I  could  honor  and  admire. 
I  did  not  get  acquainted  with  her  that  night,  but  within  the 
next  day  or  two  I  had  the  pleasure  of  giving  her  and  some 
other  members  of  her  family  phrenological  examinations.  I 
was  as  full  of  mischief  as  I  could  be,  and  desiring  to  have 
a  little  fun,  I  exclaimed,  when  I  came  to  examine  her  head, 
"  What  a  pity !  What  a  pity !  "  That  has  been  thirty-six 
years  ago,  and  even  now  she  will  stop  betimes  when  I  am 
immersed  in  life's  stern  conflicts,  and  ask  me  what  I  meant 
by  that  exclamation  when  I  examined  her  head  at  the  old 
Crawford  school  house. 

The  gentle  maiden  was  Miss  Ollie  Allen,  the  daughter  of 
A.  D.  Allen,  one  of  the  pioneer  citizens  of  McLennan 
County.  He,  with  his  family,  had  come  to  Texas  when  this 
girl  was  nine  years  old.  She  was  then  almost  seventeen. 
Moving  with  his  family  from  Georgia  in  1869,  Mr.  Allen 
had  settled  first  near  Waco  on  the  farm  of  Dunk  McLen- 


190       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

nan,  for  whose  father,  Neil  McLennan,  that  county  was 
named.  Meanwhile,  after  hard  struggles,  and  after  having 
looked  at  many  tracts  of  land  in  McLennan  County,  Mr. 
Allen  had  acquired  a  little  farm  on  the  Middle  Bosque  about 
a  mile  and  a  half  below  Crawford,  and  it  was  there  that  he 
reared  his  family.  The  same  farm  is  owned  by  his  widow 
as  this  chronicle  is  penned. 

I  at  once  became  very  fond  of  the  timid  maiden.  She  was 
not  so  approachable  as  most  girls  were.  I  found  it  difficult 
to  secure  any  kind  of  audience  with  her,  and  I  found,  more- 
over, that  her  father  was  averse  to  having  a  young  man  pay 
her  any  attention  whatsoever.  For  this  reason,  and  for  the 
reason  that  she  was  so  young,  I  did  not  press  my  suit  to  any 
great  extent  at  that  time,  but  waited  in  patience  for  a  better 
opportunity  to  tell  this  sweet  girl  exactly  what  I  thought 
of  her. 

My  phrenological  lecture  experience  at  Crawford  soon 
was  at  an  end.  It  was  in  every  way  a  marked  success.  Not 
only  had  I  enjoyed  a  splendid  financial  return,  but  I  had 
made  many  friends  in  the  Crawford  community,  among 
them  such  men  as  Uriah  Tadlock,  W.  E.  Costley,  J.  T.  Ful- 
len,  A.  T.  Ford,  Howard  Meredith  and  others  whose  names 
I  have  not  space  to  mention. 

Soon  the  school  of  Mr.  Gouldy  had  its  closing  exercises, 
which  I  attended.  Meantime,  he  had  announced  that  he 
would  not  allow  his  name  to  go  before  the  trustees  for  re- 
election. All  of  the  public  school  money  had  been  exhausted, 
but  there  would  be  another  appropriation  by  the  early  sum- 
mer, and  a  private  school  could  follow  that  would  last  into 
December.  There  were  many  of  the  patrons  of  the  school 
who  wished  that  their  children  might  go  on  uninterruptedly, 
and  for  that  reason,  encouraged  by  the  kind  co-operation 
of  the  men  I  have  named,  and  of  other  citizens,  I  prepared 
and  circulated  a  subscription  list  for  a  private  school. 
Enough  pupils  were  pledged  to  justify  me  in  announcing 


AS  A  COUNTRY  SCHOOL  TEACHER   191 

that  on  a  certain  April  Monday  morning,  I  would  open  my 
school  in  the  Crawford  school  house.  Quite  a  number  came, 
among  them  children  of  Mr.  Costley  and  Mr.  Ford  and,  to 
me,  best  of  all,  A.  D.  Allen  subscribed  two  scholars  and  sent 
his  daughter,  Ollie,  and  his  little  son,  Bob.  Bob  was  the 
baby  boy.  Pearl,  the  baby  girl,  was  at  that  time  too  young  to 
enter  school,  being  only  three  years  old. 

As  I  have  before  intimated,  Mr.  Allen  did  not  like  for  any 
young  men  to  pay  attention  to  his  daughter,  Ollie,  who,  as 
he  believed,  was  too  young  to  accept  the  company  of  young 
men.  On  that  account,  the  old  gentleman  fudged  a  little 
when  he  stated  her  age  in  the  subscription  list.  She  was 
well  on  toward  seventeen,  but  he  put  her  age  a  year  less 
than  that,  at  which  I  was  afterwards  much  amused,  though 
at  that  time  I  was  greatly  fearful  he  had  told  it  just  as 
it  was. 

I  loved  my  school  dearly.  The  children  loved  me,  and  I 
found  myself  happy  in  that  new  field.  There  was  an  in- 
centive to  study,  coupled  with  the  opportunity  for  study.  I 
began  by  boarding  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Robinson,  otherwise 
known  as  the  Crawford  Tavern.  It  was  a  storehouse-like 
residence,  and  once  had  been  a  store.  It  had  four  rooms. 
I  occupied  a  room  with  Dr.  John  Monroe.  He  was  a  man 
of  splendid  gifts  and  accomplishments,  but  was  killing  him- 
self with  drink.  He  lived  only  a  few  months  after  I  met 
him,  dying  in  the  year  1878,  somewhere  down  in  Louisiana, 
when  the  yellow  fever  scourge  came  on. 

I  later  made  my  home  with  Lee  Allen,  a  brother  of  A.  D. 
Allen.  Lee  Allen  sent  two  of  his  sons  to  my  school — Pope 
and  Bob.  Later  on,  during  the  public  school  term  of  1878, 
Pope  became  my  assistant  teacher.  Be  it  known  to  you  that 
while  my  Crawford  school  had  a  small  beginning,  it  grew 
to  what  was  then  immense  proportions.  The  children  came 
from  far  and  near  during  the  next  year's  school  term,  and 
I  soon  found  myself  with  more  than  a  hundred  students.    I 


192       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

had  to  have  an  assistant,  and  very  naturally  I  turned  to 
Pope  Allen,  who  was  my  room-mate  in  the  Lee  Allen  home, 
and  who  was  a  dear  good  friend  at  that  time,  as  he  is  today. 

There  was  a  short  period  during  the  spring  of  1877  be- 
tween the  closing  of  Mr.  Gouldy's  school  and  the  opening  of 
mine.  I  had  no  other  employment,  having  exhausted  the 
material  for  phrenological  work  in  the  Crawford  commun- 
ity, so  I  accepted  employment  as  a  cotton  chopper  on  the 
farm  of  Uriah  Tadlock,  who  was  one  of  the  pioneers  of  the 
village.  I  worked  ten  full  hours  a  day,  taking  an  hour  at 
noon,  and  received  75c  a  day  and  my  board.  It  was  not  a 
very  long  employment,  but  it  was  never  mine  to  sit  around 
and  whittle  sticks  at  the  corner  grocery  when  there  was  any 
kind  of  honest  toil  at  hand. 

I  am  as  proud  of  my  record  as  a  cotton  picker  in  Uncle 
Billy  Kemp's  field,  and  as  a  cotton  chopper  in  Uriah  Tad- 
lock's  cotton  patch,  as  I  am  of  any  other  material  achieve- 
ments of  my  entire  career,  and  I  found  that  while  there 
might  have  been  those  to  look  down  upon  the  young  fledg- 
ling of  a  pedagogue  who  "  stooped,"  as  some  might  say,  to 
the  dull  and  prosaic  occupation  of  cotton  chopping,  my  rec- 
ord in  this  particular  helped  me  with  the  more  thoughtful 
citizens  of  the  village  and  community. 

Soon  the  time  for  the  opening  of  the  school  came  on,  and 
it  was  in  every  way  satisfactory.  Later,  when  the  private 
school  period  found  its  close,  the  public  school  trustees 
unanimously  elected  me  to  teach  the  public  school,  and  thus 
the  school  went  on  without  interregnum  until  the  summer 
vacation  time. 

Just  here  I  must  recite  a  fact  that  points  a  moral  and 
adorns  a  tale.  In  my  own  school  days  I  had  mastered  Ray's 
University  Arithmetic  with  one  exception — allegation  alter- 
nate and  allegation  medial.  When  I  reached  these  problems 
in  my  own  school  life,  I  was  attending  the  school  on  Hall- 
mark's Prairie  taught  by  Reverend  Mr.  Johnson.    When  my 


AS  A  COUNTRY  SCHOOL  TEACHER   193 

class  reached  them,  the  teacher  told  us  they  were  of  no  use, 
and  let  us  skip  them.  We  were  glad  enough  as  children 
to  be  saved  the  trouble  of  mastering  these  abstruse  prob- 
lems, but  I  found  to  my  sorrow  when  the  class  in  my  own 
school  reached  them  that  I  was  in  a  most  embarrassing  posi- 
tion. Unlike  Brother  Johnson,  I  did  not  tell  my  pupils  that 
these  were  useless  acquirements,  but  frankly  stated  that  I 
did  not  know  them.  They  appreciated  my  candor,  no  mat- 
ter if  they  were  astonished  at  my  ignorance,  and  so  my 
classes  passed  them  over  just  as  I  had  done.  Until  this  day 
I  do  not  know  alligation  alternate  and  alligation  medial. 

If  I  may  be  pardoned  a  soliloquy  just  here,  it  is  that  the 
poorest  and  most  direful  thing  on  earth  to  a  pupil  in  any 
school  is  to  slight  any  feature  of  his  work.  Many  pupils 
in  our  schools  and  colleges  stuff  for  examinations,  heedless 
of  the  actual  value  of  the  attainment  of  knowledge.  What 
they  desire  to  do  is  to  "  pass,"  irrespective  of  their  profi- 
ciency. Every  teacher  knows  what  I  mean  in  this  statement. 
It  would  be  the  greatest  philanthropy  imaginable  if  deep 
impression  could  be  made  upon  the  minds  of  students  every- 
where that  it  is  not  what  they  pass  over  in  school,  but  what 
they  learn,  that  counts. 

I  slighted  nothing  in  algebra,  but  I  never  was  able  alto- 
gether to  find  "X."  It  was  a  search  that  I  industriously 
made  when  equations  came  for  elucidation,  but  there  were 
many  "  X's  "  that  were  so  elusive  that  I  never  quite  suc- 
ceeded in  corraling  them,  and  it  has  been  so  through  life.  If 
I  had  space  here,  I  would  name  a  lot  of  them,  but  time  for- 
bids, so  I  hasten  on  with  the  thread  of  my  narrative. 

I  pause  here  to  retrace  my  steps  a  little  way.  Before  I 
took  the  school,  and  just  after  I  had  concluded  my  phreno- 
logical lectures  at  Crawford,  I  fell  very  ill.  I  was  living 
with  my  brother,  and  he  gave  me  as  prompt  attention  as  he 
could.  My  future  father-in-law,  A.  D.  Allen,  afterwards 
told  that  he  was  passing  my  brother's  house  as  I  was  being 


194       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

carried  in.  He  said  that  he  heard  me  remark  to  my  brother 
that  I  knew  I  was  going  to  die,  because  I  never  had  any 
other  than  fatal  diseases.  In  later  years  we  talked  this  over, 
and  he  counted  it  a  great  joke.  I  never  could  remember 
whether  I  made  use  of  the  language  or  not,  but  it  was  all 
the  same  to  him. 

My  brother  became  frightened  concerning  my  condition, 
and  hastily  summoning  Wesley  Tadlock,  the  son  of  Uriah 
Tadlock,  he  sent  him  up  to  the  Hog  Creek  country  for  my 
father.  He  began  the  long  horseback  ride  about  eight 
o'clock  at  night  and  it  must  have  taken  him  until  midnight 
to  reach  my  father's  house.  Immediately  my  father  saddled 
his  horse  and  came  bounding  down  Crawford  way,  as  rap- 
idly as  his  magnificent  bay  steed  could  carry  him.  Wesley 
Tadlock  came  on  back  with  him,  but  he  was  hard  pressed 
to  keep  up  with  father's  pace.  I  was  unconscious  when 
father  reached  me.  The  first  thing  I  remember  was  that 
daylight  had  come  and  father  was  bending  above  my  bed.  I 
had  a  long  illness — too  long  to  remain  at  Crawford  for  con- 
valescence. Within  two  or  three  days  father  sent  back  to 
the  Hog  Creek  country  for  his  wagon,  and  bringing  down  a 
bed  from  home,  I  was  placed  thereon  and  carried  back  to 
father's  cottage,  where  I  could  have  the  ministrations  of 
my  sister  and  my  dear  mother. 

I  have  never  forgotten  the  generous  kindness  shown  me 
by  Wesley  Tadlock.  I  had  occasion  often  to  thank  him  in 
person,  and  now,  after  the  lapse  of  these  eventful  years, 
wherever  dear  Wesley  is,  I  send  to  him  across  the  interven- 
ing vales  and  hills  my  heart's  best  love.  It  may  be  that  his 
vigilance  and  generosity  saved  my  life.  On  the  other  hand, 
my  brother,  who  was  a  capable  young  physician,  might  have 
been  able,  alone  and  unaided,  to  have  brought  me  through. 
That  matters  not  in  my  love  for  Wesley.  He  was  a  dear, 
good  boy.     He  afterwards  attended  the  Crawford  school 


AS  A  COUNTRY  SCHOOL  TEACHER   195 

that  I  taught,  and  in  later  years  it  was  my  pleasure  now  and 
then  to  grasp  his  friendly,  generous  hand. 

In  order  to  complete  this  part  of  my  story,  1  must  go 
back  yet  some  years,  and  in  part  restate  what  has  been  al- 
ready told.  In  the  old  Bastrop  County  days,  when  I  was 
about  twelve  years  of  age,  I  became  possessed  of  a  stray 
dog.  One  day  when  I  was  out  rounding  up  the  cattle  in 
the  glades  that  skirted  Hallmark's  Prairie,  I  found  that  I 
was  being  followed  by  a  lean,  lank,  hungry,  cadaverous, 
humble,  pathetic-looking  brindle  dog.  I  do  not  remember 
ever  to  have  seen  a  more  pitiable  canine  specimen.  He 
looked  like  he  had  been  living  for  ages  upon  the  atmos- 
phere. From  his  eyes  there  beamed  almost  human  intelli- 
gence. All  my  life  long,  helplessness  and  poverty  have  pow- 
erfully appealed  to  me.  It  was  thus  that  when  I  looked 
upon  the  dog  and  met  his  pleading  gaze,  I  spoke  kindly  to 
him.  He  kept  on  following  me.  It  seemed  that  he  would  be 
too  weak  ever  to  reach  our  home.  He  was  almost  ex- 
hausted, but  he  did  manage  to  keep  up  with  me,  though  in 
order  to  have  him  do  so,  I  had  to  slacken  my  pace  quite  a 
little,  and  at  last  when  we  reached  home,  I  was  quick  to 
give  him  food,  and  from  that  moment  that  dog  and  I  were 
inseparable  companions.  I  named  him  "  Puppy."  He  was 
part  bulldog.  I  never  knew  the  other  strains  of  doghood 
that  coursed  through  his  dogly  veins,  but  I  never  had  a  truer 
friend  in  my  boyhood,  nor  have  I  had  a  more  faithful  friend 
or  admirer  in  any  after  years.  During  our  farming  opera- 
tions in  Bastrop  County,  his  services  were  invaluable.  At 
my  bidding  he  would  fasten  his  teeth  in  the  nose  of  the 
largest  and  wildest  steer.  Once  upon  a  time,  when  cattle 
had  broken  into  our  field  and  were  destroying  our  crop, 
"  Puppy  "  caught  a  large  beef  steer,  and  in  doing  so  the 
animal  tramped  upon  one  of  his  hind  legs  and  broke  it  at 
the  middle  joint.  The  average  man  would  have  killed  the 
dog  in  that  condition,  but  I  was  not  the  average  man  in  my 


196       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

relation  to  "  Puppy,"  nor  indeed  to  any  other  wounded  ani- 
mal. I  gently  bound  up  the  broken  joint,  wrapped  it  with 
splints  and  managed  to  get  "  Puppy  "  home.  Later,  my 
father,  who  was  a  better  surgeon  at  that  time  than  I,  reset 
the  bone,  and  by  carefully  watching  the  dog,  the  limb  healed, 
though  ever  after  he  had  a  stiff,  if  not  a  painful,  joint. 

He  went  with  us  when  we  left  Bastrop  County,  followed 
us  up  the  old  Chisholm  beef  trail,  was  near  me  when  I 
looked  after  my  father's  herd,  clung  to  me  in  all  my  wan- 
derings, was  my  faithful  companion  in  Uncle  Billy  Kemp's 
field  down  on  North  Bosque,  followed  me  to  Crawford,  and 
had  lingered  with  me  and  was  near  me  when  my  time  of 
sickness  came.  He  was  not  to  be  kept  behind  when  they 
loaded  me  in  the  wagon  to  take  me  back  to  the  Hog  Creek 
home. 

But  "  Puppy,"  being  a  stranger  in  the  West,  had  never 
learned  the  deceptions  of  the  jackrabbit.  He  would  insist 
on  chasing  them.  He  felt  that  he  could  catch  them.  It  was 
so  on  this  trip.  I  was  too  sick  to  look  after  him,  and  my 
father's  mind  was  on  other  things.  The  result  was  that  on 
that  journey  "  Puppy  "  actually  ran  himself  to  death  chas- 
ing jackrabbits.  When  we  reached  home,  "  Puppy  "  was 
missing,  and  when  I  found  a  friend  who  would  go  in  search 
of  him,  he  at  last  came  upon  the  dead  body  of  my  faithful 
dog. 

The  grief  for  his  loss  was  genuine  and  enduring.  I  have 
always  looked  back  upon  my  association  with  "  Puppy  " 
with  a  grateful  heart.  He  was  kinder  and  more  faithful 
than  many  friends  I  knew  in  after  years.  He  never  would 
have  forsaken  me,  no  matter  what  my  perils  or  my  cares. 
He  would  have  stood  by  me  at  the  cost  of  his  life,  no  matter 
how  far  I  had  wandered  from  the  path  of  rectitude  or  wis- 
dom. He  was  far  more  generous  and  forgiving  than  many 
church  members  I  have  known.     Without  deceit,  innocent 


AS  A  COUNTRY  SCHOOL  TEACHER   197 

of  diplomacy,  but  rich  in  fidelity  and  good  deeds,  he  lived 
his  obscure,  humble  life,  and  died  bravely  at  his  post  of 
duty.  So  much  for  this  good  dog,  who,  in  your  own  life 
and  in  the  lives  of  other  men  and  boys,  has  had  his  faithful 
prototype. 


XXVI 
MORE  ABOUT  SCHOOL  LIFE  AT  CRAWFORD 

IT  was  during  the  first  month  of  my  school  work  at 
Crawford  that  I  wrote  my  first  article  for  a  newspaper. 
I  had  written  a  good  deal  in  my  scrapbook  and  in  my 
diary.  Upon  a  time  up  in  the  Hog  Creek  country  I  had 
begun  the  keeping  of  a  journal.  I  did  not  keep  it  long,  and 
I  never  knew  a  man  that  did.  I  tried  it  for  just  a  little 
while  and  gave  it  up,  but  I  had  written  several  sketches  in 
my  scrapbooks,  and  had  kept  some  of  them.  It  was  not, 
however,  until  I  became  a  full-fledged  country  teacher 
that  I  accumulated  nerve  enough  to  send  an  article  to  a  news- 
paper. At  that  time  down  at  Waco  there  was  a  paper  called 
The  Waco  Telephone.  It  was  under  the  editorial  charge  of 
A.  R.  McCollum,  who  at  the  present  time  is  editor  of  The 
Waco  Tribune  and  is  State  Senator.  He  was  then  in  the 
prime  of  his  young  manhood,  and  when  I  sent  my  contribu- 
tion to  The  Telephone,  he  quickly  printed  it.  In  writing  for 
The  Telephone  I  used  the  nom  de  plume  of  "  Random." 
Simply  as  a  matter  of  information,  and  to  show  from  what 
small  beginnings  a  man's  life  may  be  projected,  I  publish 
here  in  full  this  first  contribution  to  The  Waco  Telephone: 

COUNTY  NEWS. 

Crawford,  McLennan  County,  Texas, 
October  5,  1877. 
Eds.  Telephone: 

I  will  endeavor  to  give  your  readers  an  idea  of  what  is  going  on 
in  this  vicinity,  but  will  ask  that  they  expect  little. 

The  recent  rains  have  retarded  the  progress  of  cotton  picking  to 

198 


J.  B.  Cranfill^  When  He  Taught  the  Crawford  School. 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  199 

some  extent,  but  if  the  fair  weather  of  today  continues,  the  farmers 
will  soon  make  up  for  lost  time. 

No  grain  has  been  sown  yet,  though  some  are  preparing  land. 

Our  little  village  is  very  quiet,  and  the  people  in  this  section  are 
in  good  spirits  (not  ardent  spirits).  There  is  considerable  sickness 
here  now,  though  but  few  deaths.  We  have  received  lasting  calls 
from  both  measles  and  whooping-cough,  and  they  have  interfered 
considerably  with  crop-gathering,  and  also  with  our  school,  which  is 
entirely  closed  for  the  present,  but  will  be  resumed  in  a  few  days. 

We  have  not  been  favored  with  any  weddings  yet,  but  some  of 
our  gallant  swains  will  doubtless  muster  courage  to  "pop  the  ques- 
tion" before  long,  and  they  say  that's  all  they  have  to  do. 

For  fear  of  lengthening  my  first  letter  too  much,  I  will  close. 
More  anon.  Very  respectfully,  J.  B.  C. 

I  became  a  regular  correspondent  of  The  Telephone — a 
work  that  I  much  enjoyed.  I  became  also  soliciting  agent, 
and  added  many  subscribers  to  the  weekly  edition  of  that 
bright  and  newsy  journal.  A  friendship  sprang  up  then  be- 
tween Mr.  McCollum  and  myself  which  has  endured  through 
all  the  years.  While  it  has  not  been  mine  to  see  much  of  him 
since  I  left  Waco  in  January  of  1898,  I  cherish  his  friend- 
ship with  a  grateful  heart,  and  always  think  of  him  with 
kindness  and  fraternal  love.  I  have  not  always  agreed  with 
him,  but  have  always  held  him  in  the  very  highest  esteem. 
He  is  an  editor  to  the  manner  born.  He  has  as  fine  a  nose 
for  news,  and  as  keen  a  scent  for  the  drift  of  public  opinion 
as  any  man  I  ever  knew.  He  is  withal  an  able  writer,  and 
his  early  counsels  as  I  began  my  journalistic  work  were  of 
inestimable  value.  He  has  written  more  kind  things  about 
more  people  than  perhaps  any  man  that  ever  lived  in  Texas. 

When  I  became  a  correspondent  of  The  Telephone,  I 
found  an  absolutely  new  and  virgin  world.  In  my  school 
days  I  had  read  some  splendid  literature  in  the  old  McGuf- 
fey  readers,  and  some  in  other  books,  and  they  had  their 
part  in  the  formation  of  my  own  literary  tastes  and  aptitudes, 


200       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

as  they  have  had  in  forming  the  web  and  woof  of  many  a 
young  and  hopeful  life. 

Who  can  ever  forget  the  quaint  stories  they  contained  ?  I 
remember  reading  about  "  How  the  Water  Came  Down  at 
Lodore,"  and  of  fairly  reveling  in 

"  Maud  Muller  on  a  summer's  day 
Raked  the  meadow  sweet  with  hay." 

And  again,  there  were  stories  of  Washington,  there  were 
selections  from  the  brilliant  and  inspiring  productions  of 
Washington  Irving,  and  in  the  earlier  readers  there  were 
many  of  the  little  speeches  that  we  learned  to  know  and 
speak. 

I  also  kept  up  my  medical  studies.  I  had  Flint's  Practice, 
Dunglinson  on  New  Remedies,  Gray's  Anatomy,  Dalton's 
Physiology,  Fowne's  Chemistry  and  the  United  States  Dis- 
pensatory. 

I  do  not  believe  that  I  told  you  how  near  I  came  to  being 
a  lawyer.  When  I  lived  down  in  the  Hallmark's  Prairie 
country,  I  decided,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  that  I  would  like  to 
be  a  great  lawyer  like  Wash  Jones  of  Bastrop.  Suiting  my 
action  to  the  word,  I  went  over  to  Squire  Simms'  and  bor- 
rowed his  copy  of  The  Revised  Statutes  of  Texas.  It  was  a 
ponderous  volume  then,  as  it  is  today,  and  I  suppose  that  in 
dullness  and  dryness  it  is  as  distinguished  now  as  it  was 
when  I  brought  that  bulky  copy  home.  I  studied  it  one  night, 
and  gave  up  once  and  for  all  my  ambition  to  become  a  law- 
yer. I  would  rather  sift  sand  in  the  Desert  of  Sahara  than 
to  pore  over  these  unfathomable  tomes,  and  allow  the  mois- 
ture in  my  intellect  to  be  absorbed  by  such  dull  authors  as 
Blackstone,  et  al.  I  afterwards  discovered  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  "  the  law,"  anyway,  "  the  law  "  being  what 
the  last  judge  thought  about  it. 

The  Crawford  school  grew  and  prospered.  The  patrons 
liked  the  school  and  the  scholars  loved  the  teacher.    We  had 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  201 

our  troubles,  as  all  schools  have.  In  that  school  I  had  three 
young  men  in  my  classes,  all  of  whom  were  older  than  I. 
Among  this  number  was  Pope  Allen,  who  afterwards  be- 
came my  assistant  teacher.  There  were  two  other  young 
men  in  the  school,  both  of  whom  were  a  year  or  so  older, 
than  I,  and  with  these  two  boys  I  scented  trouble.  I  treated 
them  as  best  I  could,  but  I  was  then,  as  now,  a  strong  be- 
liever in  discipline,  and  enforced  my  convictions  with  a  gen- 
tle, but  aggressive  hand.  Although  I  had  just  passed 
eighteen  years  of  age,  I  meant  to  rule  the  school,  and  I  did. 

Upon  one  occasion  these  two  boys  violated  a  well  estab- 
lished rule,  and  as  a  punishment  for  their  disobedience  I 
told  them  that  they  would  have  to  stay  in  for  a  whole  week 
of  recesses  and  playtimes.  They  were  too  large  to  whip,  so 
I  administered  what  I  deemed  a  punishment  commensurate 
with  their  offense.  I  thought  I  saw  trouble  in  the  eyes  of 
both,  and  I  never  knew  and  do  not  know  today  whether 
they  made  up  between  them  to  break  the  rule  to  test  my 
mettle,  or  whether  it  just  happened  so.  In  any  event,  when 
the  noon  recess  came  one  of  them  arose  and  announced 
that  they  would  not  stay  in,  and  that  I  could  do  what  I 
pleased  about  it.  I  stated  to  him  that  there  was  just  one 
alternative — that  he  must  obey  the  rules  of  the  school  and 
accept  his  punishment  or  be  expelled  from  the  school.  The 
other  one  joined  him  in  rebellion.  I  did  not  know  what  they 
intended,  so  I  deliberately  opened  my  pocket  knife,  which 
had  a  large,  long  blade,  and  laid  it  on  my  desk.  I  then  said 
to  both  of  them :  "  You  must  decide  right  now  whether 
you  will  obey  the  rules,  and  accept  the  punishment  assigned, 
or  you  must  pick  up  your  books  and  walk  out  of  this  house." 

They  saw  that  I  meant  what  I  said,  and  both  of  them 
quailed  before  it.  Soon  the  first  one  spoke,  and  with  a  dis- 
tinct tremor  in  his  voice  apologized  for  his  insubordination. 
He  told  me  he  would  take  his  ptmishment  and  be  a  man. 


202       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

The  other  quickly  followed,  and  the  "  tempest  in  a  teapot " 
had  found  its  end.  That  was  the  only  real  trouble  I  ever 
had  in  my  school  life,  or  that  was  ever  threatened.  I  am 
sure  that  if  I  had  shown  the  "  white  feather  "  those  boys 
would  have  given  me  a  sound  thrashing  that  day,  and  would 
have  run  me  out  of  the  Crawford  community. 

There  is  only  one  event  in  the  entire  history  of  my  Craw- 
ford school  teaching  life  that  I  regret,  and  I  do  not  regret 
that  so  very  much.  The  little  Allen  girl  kept  on  attending 
school,  and  I  kept  on  becoming  more  and  more  interested 
in  her  welfare.  She  was  always  embarrassed  when  she  stood 
up  in  the  spelling  matches.  On  that  account,  I  found  myself 
skipping  the  hard  words  when  I  would  come  to  her,  and  giv- 
ing her  the  easy  ones.  I  did  not  think  that  this  would  be 
noticed  by  the  other  scholars,  but  one  Friday  afternoon, 
when  we  had  our  spelling  match,  I  heard  one  of  the  boys 
exclaim  to  another  as  they  left  the  room  that  I  had  skipped 
the  hard  ones  and  given  the  easy  ones  to  Ollie  Allen.  I  did 
not  thrash  that  boy  just  then  because  the  school  was  out, 
but  on  Monday  morning  I  called  him  to  my  desk  and  asked 
him  if  he  had  neglected  his  other  lessons  and  looked  upon 
his  spelling  book  when  we  were  having  our  Friday  after- 
noon spelling  match.  He  said  he  had.  You  see,  it  was  this 
way:  While  I  was  giving  out  the  spelling  match  exercises 
to  the  older  pupils,  the  younger  ones  were  supposed  to  be 
intent  upon  their  own  lessons.  In  this  case,  however,  this 
boy  had  violated  the  rule  of  the  school,  and  I  felt  bound  to 
administer  to  him  a  just  punishment.  I  have  always  had 
some  qualms  about  it,  however,  and  while  my  heart  ached 
in  all  the  after  days  every  time  I  was  forced  to  givt  the 
little  Allen  girl  a  hard  word  to  spell,  I  never  again  dared  to 
skip  around  and  give  her  the  easy  ones.  You  may  not  think 
this  was  quite  fair  play,  and  if  you  say  so,  I  will  hasten  to 
agree  with  you,  but  if  you  had  been  there  in  my  place  and 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  203 

known  all  the  facts,  you  might  not  have  been  any  better 
than  I  was. 

An  incident  occurred  during  the  summer  of  1877  that  . 
was  of  more  than  passing  interest.  The  community  had  a 
weak  Missionary  Baptist  church  that  met  semi-occasionally, 
and  a  weak  Methodist  church  that  had  meetings  now  and 
then,  but  it  had  a  strong  Christian-Campbellite  church,  and 
one  of  my  most  highly  esteemed  trustees  was  a  member  of 
that  communion.  Therefore,  when  the  request  came  to  me 
to  dismiss  school  two  weeks  during  the  summer  months  in 
ord«r  for  Dr.  W.  L.  Harrison,  of  Troy,  in  Bell  County, 
one  of  the  leading  Christian  ministers,  to  hold  a  meeting, 
I  gladly  accepted.  I  had  never  met  Dr.  Harrison,  but  when 
he  came  I  found  him  to  be  a  most  intelligent  and  charming 
gentleman.  I  had  never  come  in  contact  with  a  man  more 
thoroughly  informed  upon  the  doctrines  of  his  church  than 
Dr.  Harrison.  We  took  to  each  other  at  once,  and  from  that 
day  until  his  death  we  were  warm  friends.  He  was  a  great 
advocate  of  temperance  and  prohibition,  and  his  life  was 
one  of  singular  purity  and  uprightness.  I  know  that  Dr. 
Harrison  greatly  wished  that  I  would  become  a  convert  to 
his  doctrine.  He  treated  me  with  every  courtesy  and  con- 
sideration, and  I  reciprocated.  I  went  to  every  service  and 
heard  his  series  of  sermons,  not  only  with  a  friendly  cour- 
tesy, but  with  an  open  mind.  I  had  never  heard  such  a  series 
of  discourses  on  the  doctrines  of  the  Disciples  or  Christians 
until  that  time,  and  in  all  the  years  since  then,  although  I 
have  read  many  of  their  books,  and  heard  many  of  their 
ablest  ministers,  I  have  never  been  privileged  to  listen  to  an 
abler  presentation  of  their  principles  than  I  heard  from  the 
lips  of  Dr.  Harrison. 

When  it  was  all  over  and  done,  and  I  was  still  a  Baptist, 
and  indeed  more  thoroughly  a  Baptist  than  I  had  been  at 
the  beginning,  Dr.  Harrison  expressed  great  surprise. 
Meantime,  one  of  the  patrons  of  my  school,  a  member  of  the 


204       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Christian  or  Disciples  Communion,  known  in  that  neighbor- 
hood and  honored  throughout  all  McLennan  County,  made 
a  very  generous  proposal  to  me.  The  man  was  "  Tonk  " 
Baker,  the  father  of  former  Mayor  James  B.  Baker,  of 
Waco,  and  John  W.  Baker,  now  County  Clerk  of  McLen- 
nan County.  "  Tonk  "  Baker's  children  went  to  school  to 
me,  and  they  were  bright  and  cheery  pupils.  He  ap- 
proached me  during  those  days  and  told  me  that  if  I  would 
be  willing  when  my  school  had  closed  to  take  a  thorough 
literary  course  in  a  Philadelphia  college,  he  would  pay  all 
of  my  expenses.  The  school  was  one  conducted  by  the 
Disciples,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Baker  hoped  that 
through  my  attendance  on  that  school  I  would  become  a 
member  of  their  flock.  I  felt  bound  to  decline  his  very 
generous  offer,  but  I  hold  his  memory  in  sacred  reverence 
until  this  good  day.  He  has  been  in  his  grave  these  many 
years.  It  was  mine  to  be  of  some  small  help  to  him  while  I 
lived  in  the  Crawford  community,  and  I  rejoice  to  look  back 
upon  the  little  service  that  I  rendered  him.  He  was  subject 
to  spells  of  intense  neuralgic  headache,  and  through  my 
knowledge  of  medicine  and  hygiene,  I  was  often  able  to 
give  him  quick  relief.  He  appreciated  it,  and  it  was  a  joy 
to  me  thus  to  help  him. 

I  have  always  thought  highly  of  all  the  Baker  family. 
Later  on,  in  January  of  1894,  when  the  office  of  The  Baptist 
Standard  was  consumed  by  fire,  a  son  of  "  Tonk  "  Baker, 
afterwards  Mayor  James  B.  Baker,  of  Waco,  who  was  at 
that  time  in  the  brick  business,  came  to  me  and  with  a 
hearty  and  loving  grasp  of  his  great,  generous  hand,  ten- 
dered me  all  the  brick  that  I  would  need  for  rebuilding  my 
office.  He  told  me  that  I  could  pay  for  it  or  not,  just  as  I 
pleased.  I  have  not  seen  this  good  man  in  many  years.  I 
learn  that  he  is  in  ill  health,  but  I  wish  him  to  know  that  his 
generous  helpfulness,  as  well  as  that  tendered  me  by  his 
noble  father,  have  never  failed  of  genuine  appreciation. 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  205 

When  the  winter  vacation  of  1877  came,  I  was  quite  a 
great  deal  more  advanced  in  every  way.  I  had  reached  my 
nineteenth  year  on  September  12th,  and  was  not  only  the 
Crawford  correspondent  of  The  Waco  Telephone,  but  had 
sent  some  news  letters  from  Texas  to  the  Louisville  Courier- 
Journal  and  other  papers.  I  did  not  count  these  as  great 
literary  efforts,  but  it  was  a  joy  to  find  that  my  contribu- 
tions were  accepted. 

After  my  school  had  closed,  my  old-time  desire  to  lecture 
on  phrenology  became  regnant  once  again.  To  that  end,  I 
went  down  to  Waco  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  delivering 
a  course  of  phrenological  lectures.  It  was  a  piece  of  monu- 
mental gall,  but  at  the  same  time  I  had  method  in  my  gall- 
ness.  I  had  in  mind  to  lecture  in  many  other  places  in 
McLennan  County,  and  my  thought  was  that  if  I  began  at 
the  capital  city  of  McLennan  County  I  would  gain  sufficient 
fame  to  have  easy  sailing  in  the  country  districts.  The  lec- 
ture was  advertised  most  liberally  by  The  Waco  Telephone, 
the  paper  for  which  I  corresponded.  Mr.  McCoUum  re- 
ferred to  me  as  "  Professor  J.  B.  Cranfill,  of  Crawford."  I 
had  some  posters  printed  with  a  phrenological  head  on  them, 
had  cards  made  and  rented  what  was  then  known  as  Tem- 
perance Hall,  down  on  Bridge  Street,  in  which  to  deliver 
the  lectures. 

Temperance  Hall  was  the  most  available  place  of  meet- 
ing at  that  time  in  Waco.  It  belonged  to  Peter  McLelland. 
He  was  very  kind  to  me,  though  he  was  reputed  to  be  very 
fond  of  the  "  almighty  dollar."  He  charged  me  $5  a  night 
for  the  hall.  I  was  somewhat  short  of  funds,  but  I  paid 
in  advance  for  the  first  night,  and  told  him  I  would  pay  in 
advance  each  morning  for  the  next  evening's  privilege.  I 
never  shall  forget  how  he  rolled  and  re-rolled  that  five  dol- 
lar bill  around  his  long,  lean  fingers. 

That  night  a  terrible  rainstorm  came.  I  was  not  present 
during  Noah's  flood,  and  so  I  did  not  have  that  rainstorm 


206       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

to  compare  it  with,  but  if  the  beginnings  of  the  flood  were 
any  more  floody  than  this  Waco  rain  was  that  night,  it  sure 
rained  some.  However,  I  made  my  way  through  storm, 
wind  and  rain  to  Temperance  Hall.  Strange  to  say,  three 
or  four  men  came,  among  them  Ira  Sadler,  who  had  for- 
merly represented  Coryell  County  in  the  Texas  Legislature. 
It  was  an  honor  in  those  days  to  be  a  member  of  the  Legis- 
lature, so  I  was  awfully  glad  to  meet  Mr.  Sadler  and  form 
his  acquaintance.  Later  I  learned  to  know  his  father  up 
at  Coryell  City. 

But  of  course  I  did  not  lecture.  I  talked  a  while  to  Mr. 
Sadler  and  the  two  or  three  friends  whom  he  had  brought 
with  him,  and  after  the  flood  somewhat  abated,  we  made 
our  way  back  across  Bridge  Street  around  on  Third  and 
finally  up  to  the  old  McLelland  house,  where  I  had  a  room. 
And  now  I  must  tell  you  of  a  generous  thing  old  Peter 
McLelland  did.  Next  day  I  told  him  the  circumstances.  I 
also  stated  that  on  account  of  the  uncertain  weather  I  had 
abandoned  my  design  to  deliver  other  lectures.  He  gave 
me  back  my  five  dollar  bill !  It  looked  for  all  the  world  like 
the  very  one  I  had  given  him,  and  I  believe  it  was.  This 
kindness  in  a  great  measure  changed  my  impression  that  he 
was  the  skinflint  that  many  said  he  was.  In  any  case,  he 
was  generous  to  a  struggling,  callow  youth,  to  whom  at  that 
time  a  five  dollar  bill  looked  bigger  than  a  frontier  wagon 
sheet. 

Before  I  parted  with  Ira  Sadler  at  Temperance  Hall  on 
the  night  of  my  contemplated  lecture,  he  recited  this  stanza 
from  Gray's  Elegy,  and  I  thought  it  most  appropriate : 

"  Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 

The  dark,  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear; 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

When  Gray  wrote  that  he  must  have  had  me  in  mind. 
I  had  wasted  all  my  sweetness,  and  at  the  time  of  the  de- 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  207 

livery  of  this  immortal  stanza  I  thought  I  had  wasted  my 
five  dollar  bill,  as  well  as  the  price  of  all  my  cards,  posters 
and  circulars,  not  "  on  the  desert  air,"  but  on  the  raging 
flood.  If  I  had  not  reclaimed  my  five  dollar  bill,  it  would 
have  been  even  so. 

The  early  days  of  1878  found  the  Crawford  school  again 
in  full  swing.  Meantime  I  had  secured  the  services  of 
Pope  Allen  as  my  assistant.  He  proved  most  helpful  to  me. 
His  brother,  Bob  Allen,  just  about  my  age,  was  a  pupil  in 
my  school,  and  at  this  time  an  incident  occurred  concerning 
Bob  that  I  must  relate.  There  was  a  beautiful  young  lassie 
in  the  neighborhood,  of  radiant  face  and  auburn  hair,  whom 
Bob  Allen  deeply  loved — but  Bob  was  bashful.  He  was 
in  trouble.  He  did  not  know  how  to  make  an  impression 
upon  this  idol  of  his  heart.  Somehow  he  had  gained  con- 
fidence in  my  prowess  and  ability  in  every  way,  so  he 
brought  his  tale  of  love  and  woe  to  me.  The  lady's  name 
was  not  Miss  Mary  Marsh,  but  we  will  call  her  that. 

Bob  asked  me  if  I  would  go  and  see  this  girl  for  him, 
and  loving  Bob  most  tenderly,  I  promised  him  I  would.  I 
did.  I  went  the  very  next  Sunday  afternoon,  and  all  the 
time  that  I  was  there,  I  sang  Bob  Allen's  praises  in  her  lis- 
tening ears.  She  took  it  graciously,  and  I  thought  I  was 
making  a  splendid  impression  for  Bob.  When  I  reported 
to  him  Monday  morning,  he  was  overjoyed.  That  day  at 
school  he  knew  all  his  lessons  well.  He  spelled  better  than 
he  had  ever  spelled  before.  He  seemed  to  be  right  up  near 
the  stairway  that  leads  to  the  third  heaven. 

I  pursued  this  object  for  my  pupil,  and  next  Sunday  I 
went  back  again,  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Finally,  I  noticed 
that  the  young  lady  did  not  seem  so  greatly  interested  as  I 
eulogized  Bob  Allen  as  she  had  been  before. 

On  a  bright,  moonlight  night  this  proxy  courtship  found 
its  sudden  end.  I  had  escorted  her  to  the  Patton  school 
house,  over  on  Hog  Creek,  which  I  frequently  attended.    I 


208       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

walked  back  with  her  from  the  school  house  to  her  home. 
In  the  bright  moonlight  where  we  strolled,  it  was  very  moon- 
lighty  and  very  strolly,  and  we  "  lightly  turned  to  thoughts 
of  love."  I  sang  two  or  three  hymns  concerning  Bob  to 
various  meters — common  meter,  short  meter  and  long 
meter.  At  last  this  sweet  girl  turned  her  face  full  upon  me 
and  said: 

"  Mr.  Cranfill,  it  has  been  mysterious  to  me  ever  since  you 
first  came  to  pay  me  attention  that  you  talked  all  the  time 
about  Bob  Allen.  Now  you  are  keeping  that  up  tonight.  It 
does  not  interest  me  in  the  least.  I  do  not  care  for  Bob 
Allen,  but  I  like  you." 

I  was  paralyzed.  I  did  not  fall  prostrate  to  the  ground, 
but  I  felt  myself  suddenly  becoming  ensmalled.  I  did  not 
know  what  to  say.  I  dared  not  tell  the  girl  I  did  not  like 
her,  for  I  did.  I  was  not  in  love  with  her,  but  she  was 
amiable  and  sweet,  and  I  esteemed  her  highly.  I  then  told 
her  the  whole  story — that  Bob  had  asked  me  to  come  to 
see  her  in  his  behalf.  She  was  obdurate,  and  when  I  left 
her  she  was  in  tears.  That  was  my  first  and  last  experi- 
ment in  making  love  by  proxy.  It  did  not  work  well.  I 
think  it  never  has  worked  well.  I  saw  this  gentle  maiden 
many  times  after  that  moonlight  night,  but  the  subject  was 
never  renewed. 

During  my  second  year  as  teacher,  a  new  friend  came  into 
my  life  in  the  person  of  Dr.  Thomas  Duke  Williams.  He 
was  a  guest  of  one  of  my  school  patrons,  having  blown  into 
that  far-off  community  quite  suddenly  on  a  bright  spring 
day  of  1878.  He  was  then  forty-eight  years  of  age,  and  his 
hair  and  beard  were  white  as  snow.  His  face  was  young, 
however,  as  was  his  heart — and  very  soon  he  became  my 
friend.  In  the  meantime,  my  brother  had  gone  to  Nashville 
to  take  a  medical  course  in  Vanderbilt  University.  That 
left  me  there  alone.  My  heart  was  longing  for  a  companion 
and  a  friend,  and  while  Dr.  Williams  was  nearly  three  times 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  209 

i^y  age,  we  became  at  once  almost  inseparable  companions. 
Often  when  my  school  day  was  over,  he  and  I  would  meet 
down  at  Fullen's  store  or  elsewhere,  take  long  walks  to- 
gether, and  converse  about  subjects  that  were  very  near  my 
heart.  He  was  one  of  the  best  trained  medical  men  I  ever 
knew.  He  knew  every  muscle,  nerve  and  tissue  in  the  hu- 
man body  by  heart.  He  could  tell  them  off  one  by  one,  and 
I  am  sure  he  could  have  located  them  immediately  on  any 
cadaver.  Not  only  this,  but  he  was  well  versed  in  litera- 
ture and  the  sciences,  so  I  took  to  him  with  all  my  heart, 
and  until  his  dying  day  we  were  the  best  of  friends.  He 
became  one  of  my  greatest  joys.  I  learned  much  from  him, 
and  was  particularly  interested  in  the  instruction  he  gave 
me  in  medical  and  scientific  lore.  He  often  visited  my 
school,  and  while  he  was  too  modest  ever  to  speak  in  public, 
he  at  the  same  time  was  so  kind,  so  generous,  so  helpful 
and  so  true,  that  in  all  the  after  years  1  never  found  a  friend 
I  cherished  more. 

In  going  through  some  old  papers,  I  find  the  following : 

"  McLennan  Co.,  State  of  Texas,  Dec.  i,  1877. 
"  This  is  to  certify  that  J.  B.  Cranfill,  having  furnished  evidence 
of  good  moral  character,  and  having  passed  a  satisfactory  examina- 
tion in  the  following  named  branches :  Orthography,  Reading  in 
English,  Penmanship,  Arithmetic,  Modern  Geography,  English  Gram- 
mar and  English  Composition,  is  therefore  entitled  to  receive  this 
teacher's  certificate,  and  is  hereby  pronounced  competent  to  teach  a 
school  in  this  State." 

The  certificate  was  duly  signed  by  the  County  Judge,  and 
was  declared  "  valid  until  revoked  by  him  "  for  good  cause. 
It  was  never  revoked,  and  I  cherish  this  faded  and  time- 
worn  paper  now  because  it  marked  an  important  era  in 
my  life. 

How  well  do  I  remember  the  old  frame  school  house 
where  the  village  school  was  taught !  As  I  read  this  old 
certificate,  there  passed  before  me  the  faces  of  school  chil- 


210       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

dren  whom  I  loved  and  who  loved  me,  and  the  scenes  of 
those  long  past  days  lived  once  again  as  if  they  had  been 
yesterday.  We  had  an  old-fashioned  school — the  school 
with  McGuffey's  Readers  and  Webster's  Spelling  Book  and 
Ray's  Arithmetic.  Many  were  the  afternoons  when  "  Spell- 
ing Class  No.  I  ''  would  stand  before  the  old-time  black- 
board and  tell  off  in  resounding  chorus  all  the  vowel  sounds 
from  long  "  a  "  to  the  meaning  of  two  dots  over  the  letter 
"  u."  How  those  boys  and  girls  could  spell !  Barefooted 
were  the  boys  and  many  of  the  girls,  but  when  it  came  to 
spelling  and  arithmetic  and  good,  sound,  articulate  enuncia- 
tion, they  were  far  and  away  ahead  of  some  of  the  mush- 
mouthed  youngsters  of  today,  who  read  as  if  they  had  swal- 
lowed the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  were  sorry  of  it. 

In  those  good  days  the  vacation  was  not  in  the  summer. 
After  the  crops  were  "  laid  by,"  the  real  school  began  and 
ran  at  its  flood  until  it  was  time  to  pull  the  corn  and  pick 
the  cotton.  "  Vacation  "  came  when  all  the  lads  and  lasses 
were  needed  on  the  farm,  but  their  real  vacation  was  the 
time  they  spent  in  school.  It  was  a  good  grammar  appetizer 
— those  eight  months'  work  upon  the  farm.  The  boys  who 
stood  "  head  "  in  their  classes  were  bronzed  of  face  and 
strong  of  limb,  for  each  one  was  a  "  hand  "  in  the  farm, 
and  only  came  to  school  between  times. 

I  see  the  happy  children  now,  and  hear  their  merry  shouts 
as  the  day  is  done,  and  we  each  go  to  our  separate  homes. 
Many  a  time  I  have  gone  hand-in-hand  with  this  one  or  with 
that  one  to  his  home  "  to  stay  all  night,"  and  never  have  I 
received  a  warmer  welcome  than  was  mine  when  I,  a  boy- 
teacher  of  other  boys  and  girls,  lingered  in  their  parents' 
homes. 

As  I  look  back  across  those  years,  a  feeling  that  I  cannot 
put  in  words  mounts  to  my  heart.  The  more  than  four- 
score boys  and  girls  I  knew — some  even  then  as  old  as  I — 
have  gone  their  separate  ways  in  life,  and  many  of  them 


SCHOOL  LIFE  IN  CRAWFORD  211 

sleep  the  last  long  sleep.  One  of  them  was  a  tiny  boy  in 
those  glad  days,  and  I  taught  him  to  say  his  a,  b,  c.  A  few 
years  ago  I  saw  his  body  as  it  lay  cold  in  death.  He  had 
been  shot,  and  a  gaping  wound  told  the  story  of  the  ending 
of  his  strong,  young  life.  He  threw  himself  away,  and  fol- 
lowed after  evil  habits  until  they  laid  him  low.  Others  of 
those  boys  and  girls  have  drunk  the  cup  of  sorrow  to  its 
bitter  dregs,  and  still  others  have  fallen  at  their  posts,  where 
they  were  battling  bravely  in  the  conflicts  and  the  storms  of 
life. 

Along  with  the  certificate  that  I  have  copied,  there  has 
been  kept  for  all  these  years  another  document.  After  the 
boy-teacher  and  the  little  Allen  girl  were  married,  a  testi- 
monial, written  by  Dr.  Williams,  was  signed  by  eleven  of  the 
leading  citizens  of  the  little  place,  and  I  prize  it  now  above 
gold  and  gems.  It  testifies  that  they,  the  undersigned,  hav- 
ing known  the  teacher  for  a  length  of  time,  "  do  hereby  cor- 
dially commend  him  as  a  teacher  and  a  gentleman  to  any 
community  in  which  he  may  reside."  The  teacher  was  never 
to  teach  school  again,  but  he  has  no  feelings  of  remorse, 
even  in  his  mature  years,  for  any  duty  left  undone  in  those 
glad  days,  for  he  did  his  very  best.  Almost  all  of  those  who 
signed  the  paper  testifying  to  the  teacher's  worth  are  in  their 
graves,  and  soon  all  the  rest,  together  with  the  youthful 
teacher  of  their  little  ones  of  long  ago,  will  sleep  to  wake 
at  the  trumpet  call  of  God. 


XXVII 
CLOSING  SCENES  IN  THE  CRAWFORD  COUNTRY 

THE  quiet  witchery  of  the  little  Allen  girl,  whose  full 
name  was  Celia  Olivia  Allen,  was  rapidly  winning 
the  young  Crawford  teacher's  heart.  So  serious  did 
the  love  affair  become  that  early  in  the  spring  of  1878  she 
thought  it  prudent  to  give  up  coming  to  the  school.  It  was 
a  sad  day  for  me,  but  I  was  bound  to  agree  with  her 
good  judgment  in  the  matter.  Meantime  her  father  had  be- 
come more  and  more  violently  opposed  to  my  attentions  to 
his  daughter,  and  had  forbidden  me  to  come  around  the 
place.  The  result  was  that  I  would  ride  almost  home  with 
the  sweet  lassie  from  church  picnics  and  other  gatherings, 
and  when  I  had  reached  the  top  of  the  hill  that  overlooked 
the  Allen  home,  which  nestled  down  in  a  beautiful  copse  of 
trees  near  the  banks  of  the  Middle  Bosque,  I  would  turn 
"  Old  Ball's  "  head  back  toward  Crawford,  as  she  went  on 
her  quiet  way  to  her  father's  house. 

She  was  not  yet  eighteen.  She  was  to  be  eighteen  on  May 
5,  1878.  That  day  fell  on  Sunday.  There  was  preaching 
that  day  at  the  Crawford  school  house,  and  after  the  service 
was  over  I  rode  on  the  homeward  way  with  this  sweet,  timid 
girl.  I  had  not  yet  asked  her  to  become  my  wife.  I  had 
told  her  of  my  love,  but  she  was  so  shy,  so  modest  and  so 
timid  in  every  way  that  the  mere  recital  of  it  almost  fright- 
ened her  to  death.  On  this  bright,  sweet  day  of  May,  when 
all  the  flowers  were  in  bloom,  and  the  birds  were  singing  in 
the  branches  of  the  overhanging  trees — on  this  Lord's  Day, 
which  was  doubly  sanctified  by  the  echoes  of  the  distant  Sab- 

212 


A  YOUTHFUL  MARRIAGE  213 

bath  bells — I  again  told  this  maiden  of  my  love  and  asked 
her  to  become  my  wife.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  spot  on  the 
old-time  road  from  Crawford  down  to  the  Allen  home  at 
which  this  recital  and  this  plea  were  made.  It  was  down 
below  the  graveyard — the  same  graveyard  which  I  had 
passed  all  alone  full  many  a  night  as  I  had  journeyed  from 
the  Allen  home  back  to  my  room  at  Crawford,  where  most 
of  the  time  I  made  my  home  with  Uriah  Tadlock  and  his 
noble  family. 

She  did  not  answer  me  then.  She  told  me  that  she  could 
not.  She  pleaded  her  youth.  She  referred  with  filial  love 
and  pathos  to  her  father's  opposition.  She  spoke  of  the 
tender  lover  of  her  mother.  She  told  me  that  she  was  sure 
that  her  father  would  never  yield  in  his  opposition  to  our 
union.  All  of  this  I  had  already  known  full  well,  but  the 
very  fact  of  this  opposition  had  spurred  me  on  to  the  step 
I  had  just  taken.  It  had  been  my  plan,  after  the  Crawford 
school  had  closed  that  year,  to  accept  the  overtures  of  Dr. 
Rufus  C.  Burleson,  and  take  a  course  in  Waco  University. 
Later  I  communicated  that  resolve  to  her,  but  it  was  after 
she  had  promised  to  become  my  wife.  Things  had  gone  too 
far  then  for  our  plans  to  change,  and  I  did  not  wish  to 
change  them.  However,  if  Mr.  Allen  had  been  less  obdurate, 
and  had  been  willing  for  me  to  continue  my  attentions  to 
his  daughter  by  writing  to  her  and  by  coming  anon  to  visit 
her,  the  plan  of  attending  college  would  have  been  carried 
out,  and  who  knows  but  what  the  whole  plan  of  my  future 
life  would  have  been  radically  changed  ? 

But  that  was  not  to  be,  and  what  was  to  be,  was.  I  did 
not  press  my  sweetheart  for  an  answer  on  that  glad,  tranquil 
Sabbath  day.  I  only  repeated  as  best  I  could  the  earnest 
story  of  my  love.  It  was  not  a  violent  obsession  such  as  I 
had  known  when  I  met  the  Alum  Creek  maiden  at  the  coun- 
try dance  three  years  before.  Indeed,  the  little  Allen  girl 
had  never  danced  in  all  her  life,  and  never  has  to  this  good 


214       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

day.  She  was  modest  and  unassuming,  and  while  she  was 
a  woman  grown,  she  was  yet  young  for  a  girl  of  eighteen, 
and  I  sympathized  with  her  as  best  I  could  in  all  of  the  pleas 
she  made  concerning  the  unwisdom  of  her  giving  me  an 
answer  that  day. 

I  went  home  with  her  again  next  Sunday  and  pressed  her 
for  an  answer.  I  was  always  an  aggressive  advocate,  and 
on  that  Sunday  she  promised  she  would  be  my  wife.  It  was 
on  the  same  old  road  as  we  were  journeying  back  from  the 
Crawford  meeting  house,  which  also  served  as  a  teaching 
place  for  my  country  school.  We  did  not  know  how  our  love 
affair  could  be  worked  out.  We  only  knew  that  two  young 
hearts  had  plighted  their  love  to  each  other  forever  and  for 
aye,  and  that  for  better  or  for  worse,  if  it  should  be  God's 
will,  we  would  journey  down  the  road  of  life  together. 

The  news  of  our  engagement  did  not  reach  Mr.  Allen's 
ears  for  some  days  thereafter,  but  it  is  difficult  to  keep  such 
things  from  the  knowledge  of  those  most  intimately  con- 
cerned. He  did  find  it  all  out,  and  so  did  her  mother.  He 
was  furious,  and  the  mother  was  sorely  grieved.  They  drew 
the  reins  more  tightly  around  their  daughter.  I  was  not  only 
forbidden  to  come  to  the  house,  but  I  was  forbidden  under 
pains  and  penalties  to  address  her  in  any  way  whatsoever. 

It  made  me  desperate.  Mr.  Allen  was  a  hunter  of  large 
experience  and  brilliant  success.  I  suppose  that  during  the 
period  covered  by  his  residence  in  McLennan  County  he 
killed  more  game  than  any  man  that  ever  lived  there.  He 
was  a  dead  shot  with  a  shotgun,  and  I  knew  that  he  was  a 
man  who  would  carry  out  his  purpose  at  any  cost.  He  never 
was  a  bad  man,  but  he  was  a  man  of  stern  resolve  and  deep 
convictions,  and  when  he  set  his  head  he  was  like  the  bull- 
dog in  the  Hoosier  Schoolmaster — "  all  heaven  and  yairth 
couldn't  make  him  turn  loose."  In  order  to  be  prepared  to 
defend  myself,  I  bought  an  army  six-shooter  of  the  Colt 
pattern  and  carried  it  everywhere,  except  to  school.    Every 


A  YOUTHFUL  MARRIAGE  215 

time  I  went  with  the  little  Allen  girl  I  had  that  immense 
revolver  buckled  around  me,  and  concealed  it  as  best  I  could. 
I  fully  meant  to  use  it  if  Mr.  Allen  appeared  upon  the  scene 
with  his  shotgun,  and  while  I  am  sure  I  would  not  have 
stood  a  ghost  of  a  chance  for  my  life,  I  intended  to  stand 
my  ground. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  desperation  that  my  beloved 
friend.  Dr.  T.  D.  Williams,  proved  the  sincerity  of  his  love. 
I  told  him  all  my  troubles.  My  father  was  not  there;  my 
brother  was  away  attending  medical  college,  and  Dr.  Wil- 
liams was  the  only  intimate  friend  I  had  in  whom  I 
could  confidently  confide.  I  told  him  of  my  engagement, 
of  my  love  for  Mr.  Allen's  daughter,  of  my  purpose  to  marry 
her  and  of  my  fixed  determination  to  shoot  Mr.  Allen  if  he 
ever  appeared  upon  the  scene  and  attempted  to  shoot  me. 
Dr.  Williams  would  surprise  me  as  I  would  make  these  talks 
to  him.  He  would  say:  "  I  am  so  delighted  to  hear  you 
say  that.  Tell  me  all  about  how  you  are  going  to  kill  him." 
He  would  go  on  that  way  by  the  hour,  laughing  the  while. 

This  was  his  sweet,  friendly  way  of  pacifying  me.  After- 
wards, when  it  was  all  over,  when  I  had  married  Mr.  Allen's 
daughter  and  been  welcomed  back  to  the  Allen  home  as  one 
of  the  family,  Dr.  Williams  told  me  why  he  had  always  re- 
joiced when  I  voiced  my  threats  of  vengeance  to  him.  He 
was  a  philosopher.  He  said  that  whenever  a  man  gave  ex- 
pression to  his  desire  to  wreak  vengeance  or  defend  himself, 
the  purpose  largely  spent  itself  in  the  recital,  and  every  time 
I  told  him  of  my  outraged  feelings,  he  felt  sure  that  I  had 
found  a  safety  valve,  and  that  Mr.  Allen  was  in  no  danger. 
He  added  that  if  I  ever  had  moped  and  drooped  and  said 
nothing,  meanwhile  preserving  my  air  of  injury  and  furios- 
ity, he  would  really  have  been  concerned  for  Mr.  Allen  and 
for  me,  but  as  the  matter  stood,  he  never  thought  of  it 
seriously. 

My  school  closed  at  Crawford  on  Friday,  August  30,  1878, 


216       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

and  on  the  day  following  I  went  alone  to  Waco  to  secure 
my  marriage  license.  I  knew  that  I  would  have  to  steal  my 
girl,  but  I  had  a  friend  at  court  in  the  person  of  her  older 
sister,  Miss  Addie  Allen,  now  Mrs.  Dan  Ford,  of  Waco.  I 
also  found  a  sympathizing  friend  in  my  assistant  teacher, 
Pope  Allen,  who  was  a  cousin  of  my  intended  wife.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  the  help  and  connivance  of  these  two  dear 
young  friends,  I  would  never  have  been  able  to  marry  the 
girl  who  had  won  my  heart,  but  they  stood  by  me  and  sympa- 
thized with  both  of  us. 

We  planned  the  elopement  for  Sunday  morning.  There 
was  a  Methodist  camp-meeting  in  progress  under  an  arbor 
at  Patton  school  house,  and  the  preacher  at  that  meeting 
was  Rev.  John  M.  Barcus.  Our  plan  was  to  have  my  in- 
tended wife  and  her  sister,  together  with  their  mother  and 
the  smaller  children,  start  in  their  two-horse  wagon  over  to 
the  Methodist  camp-meeting.  They  were  Methodists,  and 
this  was  a  very  natural  thing  to  do.  Pope  Allen  and  I  were 
to  secure  a  hack  and  intercept  them  on  the  prairie  at  a 
point  agreed  upon,  at  which  time  the  young  women  would 
leave  the  mother  and  the  smaller  children,  and  get  in  the 
hack  with  us. 

John  W.  Baker  was  County  Clerk  and  Pink  Pogue  was 
Deputy.  I  was  well  acquainted  with  John  W.  Baker.  He 
was  the  son  of  Uncle  Tonk  Baker,  to  whom  I  have  already 
referred,  and  a  brother  of  Hon.  James  B.  Baker.  He  was 
not  in  the  office  when  I  appeared  to  ask  for  my  license,  so  it 
was  promptly  issued  to  me  by  my  friend.  Pink  Pogue.  I 
paid  him  the  $1.50  and  wended  my  way  to  Sanger  Bros,  to 
buy  some  little  trappings  for  the  wedding  day.  My  girl, 
on  account  of  having  to  run  away,  could  not  procure  any 
wedding  doings  whatsoever,  so  I  had  to  buy  some  gloves 
and  little  extras  for  her,  and  some  gloves  and  other  simple 
articles  for  myself.  This  I  did,  and  hastened  on  "Old  Ball  " 
back  out  to  the  Patton  school  house,  where  we  young  peo- 


A  YOUTHFUL  MARRIAGE  217 

pie  were  to  meet  on  Saturday  night  preceding  Sunday, 
which  was  to  be  the  wedding  day.  That  was  a  long  day^s 
ride  for  "  Old  Ball."  It  must  have  been  fifty  miles.  When 
I  had  completed  the  round  and  had  reached  Patton  school 
house,  the  services  had  well  begun,  but  I  had  my  license  in 
my  pocket,  and  all  of  us  were  overjoyed  when  I  gave  the 
good  news  to  the  young  people  who  were  to  help  us  in  the 
serious  undertaking  of  tomorrow. 

I  had  some  fear  that  I  would  not  be  able  to  procure  a 
marriage  license,  and  my  friend  Pink  Pogue  was  so  much 
concerned  about  the  matter  that  after  I  had  wended  my  way 
to  Sanger  Bros.,  far  up  on  Austin  Street,  to  make  my  pur- 
chases, he  overtook  me  to  ask  if  the  girl  in  the  case  was 
eighteen  years  of  age.  I  told  him  very  blandly  and  yet 
firmly  that  she  had  completed  her  eighteenth  year  on  May 
5th  just  past.  That  greatly  relieved  his  mind.  He  seemed 
to  be  as  much  relieved  as  were  the  young  people  when  later 
I  exhibited  to  them  the  marriage  license. 

I  slept  very  little  that  Saturday  night.  I  was  staying  at 
Uriah  Tadlock's.  I  had  not  been  extra  provident  in  my 
economies,  and  so  when  the  time  of  the  mariage  came,  five 
dollars  was  every  cent  I  had  on  earth.  I  made  a  trade  with 
Mr.  Tadlock  for  his  hack  the  following  day,  but  of  course 
I  did  not  dare  to  reveal  to  anyone  that  I  was  to  steal  A.  D. 
Allen's  daughter.  He  charged  me  $3  for  the  hack,  and  it 
was  cheap  enough,  but  it  took  sixty  per  cent  of  all  my  finan- 
cial capital. 

On  Sunday  morning,  as  we  had  planned.  Pope  Allen  was 
intercepted  over  on  the  road,  and  when  he  got  in  with  me  we 
hastened  to  the  point  agreed  upon.  It  all  worked  well. 
Soon  the  A.  D.  Allen  family,  minus  Mr.  Allen  himself,  who 
seldom  went  to  church,  drove  by,  and  true  to  our  plans, 
we  hailed  the  young  ladies  and  they  had  their  wagon  stopped 
to  get  in  with  us.  That  was  the  first  time  that  the  dear, 
sweet  mother  realized  the  situation.     She  told  me  after- 


218       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

wards  that  when  she  saw  us  make  that  play  she  felt  greatly 
alarmed;  however,  she  said  nothing,  and  if  she  had,  the 
result  would  not  have  changed. 

We  hastened  as  rapidly  as  Mr.  Tadlock's  spick-and-span 
pair  of  horses  could  carry  us,  and  reached  the  Patton 
school  house  arbor  just  as  they  had  begun  to  sing  the  first 
hymn  for  the  eleven  o'clock  service.  I  knew  Brother  Bar- 
cus  quite  well,  so  after  the  hymn  was  over  I  slipped  around 
and  informed  him  that  I  wanted  him  to  say  my  wedding 
ceremony.  He  was  entirely  agreeable,  but  the  dear,  good 
man  had  no  suspicion  that  it  was  a  runaway  couple.  Before 
another  song  was  sung,  we  stood  up  there  under  that  old- 
time  brush  arbor,  and  he  pronounced  the  words  that  made 
us  husband  and  wife.  I  gave  him  my  $2.  That  was  the 
last  cent  I  had,  but  I  felt  that  he  was  entitled  to  it. 

We  lingered  there  for  church,  but  felt  it  was  possibly  a 
dangerous  experiment.  Mr.  Allen  could  have  had  no  means 
of  knowing  what  was  going  on.  There  were  no  telephones 
and  no  automobiles.  We  were  driving  one  of  the  best  team- 
mobiles  in  the  Crawford  country.  If  there  had  been  any 
chance  for  Mr.  Allen  to  have  known,  we  would  have  wor- 
shiped that  day  on  the  wing. 

Mrs.  Allen  soon  came  on,  together  with  the  smaller  chil- 
dren of  the  Allen  family,  and  learned  what  had  happened. 
The  dear,  good  woman  wept,  and  all  of  us  felt  sorry  for  her, 
but  I  did  not  feel  sorry  enough  to  give  her  back  her  girl. 

We  hastened  on  to  Tom  Watson's,  whose  home  was  up 
on  Hog  Creek,  some  fifteen  miles  from  Crawford.  Tom 
Watson's  wife  was  a  cousin  of  my  wife,  so  on  that  Sunday 
night  they  gave  us  welcome  and  good  cheer,  and  extended 
to  us  the  most  kindly  and  fraternal  greeting. 

On  the  next  day,  all  four  of  us  drove  on  to  Coryell  City, 
where  my  father  lived.  It  was  some  thirty-five  miles  from 
Waco. 

Father's  home  was  a  very  modest  cottage  of  two  rooms. 


A  YOUTHFUL  MARRIAGE  219 

He  and  my  mother  and  sister  were  very  kind  to  the  newly 
wedded  pair,  but  were  greatly  surprised  to  see  us.  They 
had  no  thought  that  I  was  to  be  marired  so  soon,  and  no 
more  had  I.  They  surrendered  one  room  to  us,  and  there 
in  that  little  humble  Coryell  City  home  of  my  dear  father 
and  mother,  we  began  our  married  life. 

Many  times,  as  the  years  have  grown  old,  I  have  thought 
of  the  wisdom  of  Mr.  Allen's  position  concerning  my  atten- 
tions to  his  daughter.  If  any  long,  lean,  lank,  cadaverous 
pedagogue,  who  had  never  saved  a  penny  in  his  life  and 
whose  earthly  possessions  consisted  of  a  bald-faced  horse, 
a  cowboy  saddle,  a  fiddle,  an  accordeon,  two  or  three  suits 
of  clothes,  a. $5  bill  and  a  few  books,  had  come  to  court  my 
girl,  I  would  have  set  the  dogs  on  him.  None  of  us  could 
see  down  the  vista  of  the  coming  years.  He  judged  of  what 
was  visible,  and  he  was  right,  but  I  did  not  see  it  then,  and  I 
felt  greatly  outraged  at  his  opposition. 

I  left  the  old  Crawford  friends  with  deep  regret.  There 
I  began  my  active  life.  It  was  there  I  found  legions  of 
warm  friends.  It  was  there  that  my  eyes  first  began  to 
open  upon  the  realities  of  life.  It  was  there  I  met  and  won 
my  wife.  It  was  there  that  I  took  my  first  deep  lesson  in 
self-culture  and  self-care.  It  is  true  that  my  father  set  me 
to  work  for  him  when  I  was  fifteen  years  of  age,  but  I  was 
still  at  home  and  had  the  benefit  of  his  wise  and  noble  coun- 
sel. At  Crawford  I  was  out  at  sea  alone.  I  had  no  relative 
near.  I  had  none  but  the  new-made  friends,  and  was  thrown 
wholly  upon  my  own  mental  and  financial  resources. 

The  dear  schoolboys  and  girls  who  foregathered  in  that 
old-time  country  school  house  are  all  grown  up  and  many 
of  them  have  passed  on  to  be  with  God.  It  has  been  thirty- 
five  years,  as  this  chronicle  is  penned,  since  the  last  day  of 
that  old  Crawford  school,  yet  my  heart  goes  back  to  Wes- 


220       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

ley  Tadlock,  Alex  Tadlock,  Troy  Lakey,  Lum  Wills,  the  lit- 
tle Tadlock  girls,  now  women  grown  and  one  of  them  a 
grandmother ;  the  little  McClellan  girl,  who  afterwards  mar- 
ried Ryall  Ford ;  Mollie  Meredith,  and  others  whom  I  have 
not  space  to  name ;  but  I  carried  the  main  part  of  the  Craw- 
ford school  away,  and  she  is  with  me  still. 


XXVIII 

THE  VAUGHAN  MURDER  AND  ITS 
CONSEQUENCES 

NEAR  Rock  school  house,  in  the  edge  of  Bosque 
County,  some  ten  miles  from  Crawford,  a  country 
store  was  kept  by  a  man  named  Vaughan.  He  was 
a  bachelor.  He  was  thrifty,  and  had  accumulated  quite  a 
handsome  competency.  The  rumor  was  that  he  kept  money 
in  his  iron  safe.  There  were  no  banks  available.  The  near- 
est bank  was  at  Waco,  over  30  miles  away,  and  that  was  too 
far  for  convenient  banking. 

On  a  night  in  May,  1878,  Vaughan  was  murdered,  and  his 
store  was  robbed  and  looted.  No  one  ever  knew  how  much 
money  the  robbers  and  assassins  secured,  but  they  made  their 
escape,  and  left  the  marred  form  of  the  merchant  lying  in 
the  front  door  of  his  store.  When  he  was  found  next  day, 
his  face,  white  and  ghastly,  was  upturned  to  the  morning 
sun.  He  had  slept  in  the  store,  and  the  robbers  had  come 
in  apparently  at  the  rear  door,  had  murdered  him,  and  then 
had  taken  plenty  of  time  to  accomplish  their  purposes  of  pelf 
and  plunder. 

At  that  time,  such  murders  as  this  were  very  rare.  It 
has  never  been  unusual  for  men  to  be  killed  in  Texas, 
but  in  those  earlier  years  they  were  killed  in  combat  with 
each  other.  Men  met  face  to  face,  drew  their  revolvers, 
"  shot  it  out,"  as  it  was  called,  and  the  trouble  was  over, 
whether  one  or  two  or  half  a  dozen  men  were  dead.  Murder 
for  purposes  of  robbery  was  almost  wholly  unknown  in 
those  early  Texas  days.    Indeed,  this  is  the  only  case  of  that 

221 


222       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

kind  that  I  ever  knew  until  the  days  of  Sam  Bass,  and  other 
professional  murderers  and  robbers,  who  sprang  up  in  the 
Southern  and  Southwestern  part  of  the  United  States,  fol- 
lowing the  exploits  of  Jesse  James  and  other  men  of  his 
type. 

But  Vaughan  was  killed  and  robbed,  and  the  murderers 
made  good  their  escape.  Up  in  Coryell  County,  which  was 
the  county  adjoining  McLennan  on  the  west,  there  lived  Bill 
Babb,  one  of  the  most  picturesque  characters  that  West 
Texas  ever  knew.  He  had  a  store  and  ranch  at  a  little  vil- 
lage named  for  him,  and  kept  around  him  a  small  army  of 
operatives  of  various  kinds.  His  store  at  the  little  town 
of  Babbville  was  one  of  the  largest  general  stores  west  of 
Waco.  Not  only  that,  but  he  had  extensive  cattle  and  land 
interests,  and  the  men  who  companied  with  him  were  ac- 
counted the  most  courageous  and  daring  denizens  of  the 
western  plains.  Among  them  were  Dave  Ware,  Jasper  Whit- 
ley and  Babb's  son.  Bill  Ike  Babb,  who  was  as  daring  as  his 
father,  and  who  possessed  all  of  the  impetuosity  of  youth, 
coupled  with  marvelous  courage  and  intrepidity. 

Bill  Babb  was  a  man  of  very  strong  prejudices.  Whom 
he  liked  he  loved  and  whom  he  disliked  he  hated.  He  was 
feared  by  all  of  Hamilton  and  Coryell  Counties,  and  even 
as  far  down  as  Waco.  When  he  was  sober,  he  was  of  amia- 
ble temper,  but  when  on  one  of  his  sprees,  he  was  a  dare- 
devil, with  Kit  Carson,  Louis  Wetzel,  Jesse  James,  Sam  Bass 
and  Bill  Babb  compounded  into  one.  Quite  often,  on  these 
sprees,  when  down  in  Waco,  he  would  ride  his  horse  straight 
into  the  front  doors  of  the  Waco  saloons,  and  at  the  point 
of  his  revolver,  order  the  drinks.  This  was  not  an  uncom- 
mon occurrence  at  all,  and  up  in  the  Coryell  County  section 
he  had  everything  his  own  way.  It  was  as  much  as  a  man's 
life  was  worth  to  openly  oppose  him;  and  while  Babb  was 
thought  to  be  above  a  misdemeanor,  he  was  vitriol  to  his  ene- 
mies.    He  was  part  Cherokee  Indian.     His  brother,  Rev. 


THE  VAUGHAN  MURDER  223 

David  Babb,  was  a  Missionary  Baptist  minister  of  some 
repute,  and  my  father  and  Dave  Babb  had  held  revival  meet- 
ings together.  It  thus  fell  out  that  the  Babbs  and  my  father 
were  good  friends,  and  I  inherited,  when  later  I  went  to  the 
Turnersville  country,  the  friendliness  that  my  father  had 
enjoyed  at  the  hands  of  all  the  Babbs. 

During  the  same  period,  there  lived  in  the  Turnersville 
section,  John  Stull,  a  Deputy  United  States  Marshal.  He 
was  at  loggerheads  with  Babb  and  all  of  Babb's  contingent. 
When  the  Vaughan  murder  was  committed,  Stull  at  once 
imbibed  the  notion  that  Babb  and  his  outfit  were  guilty  of 
the  crime.  The  result  was  that  he  arrested  Bill  Babb,  Bill 
Ike  Babb,  Dave  Ware,  Jasper  Whitley  and  some  others  of 
the  Babb  bunch,  and  took  them  to  Meridian,  the  county  site 
of  Bosque  County,  and  threw  them  into  jail.  All  along  the 
way,  as  they  were  being  carried  to  prison,  they  breathed  out 
threatenings  among  themselves  against  John  Stull,  and  those 
who  were  of  the  inner  circle  of  western  life  felt  that  if  the 
Babbs  were  not  convicted,  the  life  of  John  Stull  would  pay 
the  forfeit. 

In  due  time,  Babb  and  his  coadjutors  had  an  examining 
trial,  and  with  all  his  ingenuity  and  skill,  John  Stull  was  un- 
able to  convince  the  judge  that  they  had  any  part  in  the 
murder  and  robbery  of  Vaughan.  The  result  was  that  they 
were  not  even  held  to  the  grand  jury.  They  were  turned 
loose,  went  on  their  way  back  to  Babbville  and  resumed 
their  accustomed  duties. 

In  the  meantime,  another  trail  had  been  found  which  led 
into  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  Lampasas  County.  Other 
detectives  had  discovered  this  clue,  with  the  result  that  a 
gang  of  outlaws  who  infested  the  western  part  of  Lampasas 
County  were  arrested,  charged  with  the  Vaughan  murder. 
They  were  the  Harrell  brothers,  and  along  with  them  was  a 
man  by  the  name  of  Bill  Crabtree.  They  were  all  arrested, 
nine  of  them,  and  placed  in  the  Meridian  jail.    The  evidences 


224       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

of  their  guilt  multiplied,  and  so  strong  was  the  conviction 
in  the  public  mind  that  they  were  guilty  of  the  crime  of  hav- 
ing murdered  Vaughan  and  robbed  his  store,  that  upon  a 
certain  night  in  July  of  1878,  a  mob  gathered  in  Meridian 
and  shot  every  one  of  them  to  death.  Meantime  Bill  Crab- 
tree,  one  of  the  number,  had  turned  state's  evidence  and  had 
been  released.  It  was  through  his  minute  delineation  of  the 
crime  that  everybody  became  convinced  that  the  Harrell 
brothers  and  Crabtree  had  committed  this  atrocious  crime. 
Crabtree  was  released  in  the  afternoon  of  the  night  on  which 
the  mob  did  their  bloody  work.  He  made  a  heroic  effort 
to  escape,  but  the  same  mob  that  executed  the  Harrell  broth- 
ers overtook  him  before  he  had  reached  the  corporate  limits 
of  Meridian,  and  shot  him  to  death. 

This  disposed  of  the  real  murderers  of  Vaughan,  and 
while  the  execution  was  a  most  summary  one,  and  while 
there  were  law-abiding  citizens,  even  in  that  day,  who  dep- 
recated mob  violence  of  every  kind,  the  consensus  of  opinion 
throughout  Bosque  and  McLennan  Counties  was  that  sub- 
stantial justice  had  been  done  without  running  the  county 
to  undue  expense,  and  thus  the  matter  of  Vaughan's  mur- 
der, so  far  as  McLennan  and  Bosque  Counties  were  con- 
cerned, passed  into  history,  and  was  dismissed  from  the  pub- 
lic mind. 

But  there  was  another  branch  of  the  case  not  yet  adjudi- 
cated. Babb  and  his  following  were  still  in  Coryell  County 
at  Babbville,  and  John  Stull  was  yet  alive  performing  his 
duties  as  Deputy  United  States  Marshal,  and  engaged  in 
the  improvement  of  a  little  home  that  was  situated  a  mile 
and  a  half  below  Turnersville  on  the  Waco  road.  No  effort 
was  made  to  disturb  Stull.  The  threats  of  Babb  and  his  fol- 
lowing seemed  to  have  been  forgotten.  Notwithstanding  the 
Babbs  had  been  incarcerated  in  the  Meridian  jail  some  time 
in  June,  Stull  went  on  unmolested,  and  continued  the  im- 
provement of  his  little  home.     Meantime,  he  went  on  his 


THE  VAUGHAN  MURDER  225 

rounds  out  into  the  remote  districts  of  Western  Texas,  hunt- 
ing down  outlaws,  making  arrests,  looking  after  the  inter- 
ests of  the  government,  and,  so  far  as  the  mind  of  man  could 
discern,  he  was  absolutely  secure  in  every  way. 

In  order  to  complete  the  connection  of  this  part  of  the 
story,  I  must  take  up  the  thread  of  my  former  recital  and 
tell  of  my  own  movements  from  September  i,  1878,  until 
the  night  of  December  8,  1878.  My  father  was  living  in 
Coryell  City,  but  he  still  owned  his  farm  and  cattle,  which 
were  being  cared  for  near  his  Hog  Creek  home,  some  ten 
miles  away.  This  was  the  same  home  that  I  had  helped  him 
build  before  I  went  to  teach  the  Crawford  school.  After  a 
few  days  of  sojourn  at  Coryell  City,  all  of  our  belongings 
were  packed,  and  we  went  back  to  the  little  Hog  Creek  home. 
It  consisted  of  a  box  house  of  two  rooms,  and  a  chimney. 
As  in  the  former  instance,  my  father,  mother  and  sister 
very  kindly  occupied  the  big  room,  and  designated  the  shed- 
room  for  my  young  wife  and  me. 

That  autumn  I  helped  my  father  with  his  cattle  and  his 
other  affairs.  Meantime  I  kept  up  my  medical  studies,  and 
now  that  I  had  rejoined  him,  he  gave  me  more  time  and 
attention  than  he  had  ever  done  before.  However,  when  the 
winter  came  on,  it  was  very  cold  and  severe.  Early  in  the 
winter  there  were  a  number  of  "  cold  snaps,"  as  we  called 
them,  and  I  put  in  practically  all  of  my  time  looking  after 
my  father's  cattle. 

December  8,  1878,  fell  on  Sunday.  While  the  day  was 
clear,  it  was  very  cold  and  crisp.  The  weather  was  dry. 
Sunday  night  was  distinctly  chilly.  Before  sunup  Monday 
morning  a  messenger  came  to  our  home  and  told  us  that  a 
terrible  murder  had  been  committed.  Father  and  I  hastily 
saddled  our  horses  and  galloped  to  the  home  of  John  Stull. 
When  we  reached  there,  a  ghastly  sight  confronted  us.  Lying 
out  in  the  front  yard  was  the  body  of  John  Stull,  stark  and 
cold  in  death,  and  near  him  lay  the  body  of  a  man  named 


226       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Smith,  who  had  been  Stull's  guest  overnight,  and  who  had 
met  with  him  a  common  fate.  The  murder  of  StuU  and  Smith 
was  diaboUcal.  In  the  improvement  of  his  place,  StuU 
had  piled  up  in  front  of  his  gate  a  large  stack  of  cedar  posts. 
In  the  commission  of  the  murder,  a  contingent  of  the  assas- 
sins had  concealed  themselves  behind  these  posts,  while 
another  contingent,  apparently  two  in  number,  had  slipped 
around  behind  the  Stull  home,  had  saturated  the  rear  walls 
with  coal  oil,  and  had  set  the  house  on  fire.  Stull  had  no 
idea  whatsoever  that  he  was  to  be  assassinated.  He  thought 
that  his  house  was  on  fire.  A  water  bucket  lay  near  his  body. 
He  had  evidently  jumped  out  of  bed,  run  for  a  water  bucket, 
and  then  to  the  front  to  see  where  the  blaze  was  strongest. 
As  he  had  emerged  from  his  front  door,  he  had  been  shot  to 
death  by  the  posse  of  men  concealed  behind  the  cedar  posts. 
The  assassins  had  not  calculated  upon  an  extra  man  and 
family  there. 

The  fact  was  this:  Mr.  Smith,  his  wife  and  two  little 
children  had  begun  a  new  home  near  the  Stull  home,  but 
they  had  not  yet  completed  their  chimney.  Stull  had  com- 
pleted his,  so  that  he  could  have  a  fire  in  his  grate.  The 
Smiths,  not  having  any  way  to  warm  their  home,  and  shiver- 
ing with  cold,  had,  on  Saturday  night,  asked  the  privilege 
of  staying  over  Sunday  with  the  Stulls — a  favor  which  was 
readily  and  generously  granted.  When  Smith  emerged  from 
the  shed-room  door  (he  and  his  family  were  occupying  the 
shed- room),  he  had  his  two  children  in  his  arms.  All  of  the 
two  families  thought  the  house  was  on  fire.  The  Stull 
family  consisted  of  Stull,  his  wife  and  a  young  step-daughter 
of  Stuirs,  who  afterwards  married  a  dear  friend  of  mine, 
David  Morgan. 

One  of  the  strangest  features  of  this  assassination  was  in 
the  fact  that,  while  Smith  was  shot  to  death,  being  almost 
riddled  with  bullets,  neither  of  his  little  children  was  touched 
in  any  way  whatsoever.    Mrs.  Smith,  who  followed  her  hus- 


THE  VAUGHAN  MURDER  227 

band  out  from  the  shed-room,  was  shot  in  one  of  the  lower 
limbs.  She  afterwards  recovered.  Mrs.  Stull  and  her  little 
girl  were  unharmed,  but  it  was  evident  from  all  of  the  sur- 
roundings that  this  band  of  assassins  meant  to  kill  Stull,  his 
wife  and  daughter,  and  burn  their  dead  bodies  in  the  house. 
When  they  found  they  had  a  large  contract  on  hand,  they 
refrained  from  carrying  out  their  original  plan.  As  an 
evidence  that  they  meant  to  kill  all  of  the  Stull  family,  one 
of  the  mob  took  dead  aim  at  the  little  girl,  as  she  crouched 
under  the  kitchen  table,  and  sped  a  bullet  through  her  hair. 
It  cut  off  one  of  her  raven  ringlets,  which  was  afterwards 
picked  up  on  the  shed-room  floor.  That  Sunday  night  the 
moon  was  full.  The  assassins  worked  in  a  light  almost  as 
bright  as  day.  They  waited  until  all  of  the  Stull  family 
were  sound  asleep,  and  then  this  terrible  crime  was  perpe- 
trated. The  house  was  never  really  on  fire.  The  coal  oil 
made  a  big,  quick  blaze,  but  the  wall  of  the  house  was  not 
ignited. 

Notwithstanding  I  had  left  the  Crawford  country,  I  was 
still  the  correspondent  of  The  Waco  Telephone.  I  had 
maintained  my  interest  in  Texas  journalism,  and  every  week 
while  living  in  the  Hog  Creek  country,  had  gone  to  Coryell 
City  to  secure  the  weekly  mail.  On  the  day  following  the 
murder,  I  went  to  Turnersville  and  wrote  as  graphic  an 
account  as  I  could  frame  of  this  horrible  tragedy.  I  did 
not  in  the  remotest  manner  intimate  who  was  thought  to 
be  guilty  of  the  murder  of  Stull  and  Smith,  but  there  was 
but  one  thing  in  the  minds  of  the  citizens  of  that  community. 
No  names  were  mentioned. 

A  reign  of  terror  began  with  the  murder  of  Stull  such 
as  I  never  witnessed  either  before  or  since.  Every  man  in 
that  vicinage  who  heard  a  noise  around  his  home  at  night 
feared  that  the  same  fate  was  to  be  visited  upon  him  and 
his  that  had  befallen  Stull  and  his  family.  No  one  burned 
lights   after   dark   unless   they   had   impenetrable   window 


228       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

shades.  That  entire  section  of  Texas,  including  practically 
all  of  Coryell  County,  felt  the  terrible  blight  of  this  calamity. 
There  was  not  a  man  in  Coryell  County  that  did  not  believe 
StuU  had  been  murdered  by  Babb  and  his  gang,  but  no  one 
spoke  a  word.  The  reign  of  terror  was  as  complete  and 
abject  as  it  ever  could  have  been  during  the  terrible,  blood- 
curdling days  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me  here.  Those  West  Texas  men 
were  as  brave  as  brave  could  be,  but  they  were  unorganized. 
They  were  men  of  families.  They  had  their  business  inter- 
ests to  take  care  of.  They  were  terrorized,  because  Babb 
was  almost  omnipotent,  and  no  man  knew  when  he  dared 
breathe  out  an  opinion  on  any  subject  but  what  he  might 
be  talking  to  one  of  Babb's  lieutenants.  Babb  had  a  very 
large  number  of  friends,  not  only  in  the  Tumersville  and 
Babbville  country,  but  throughout  all  that  section  of  Texas, 
and  if  a  man  had  voiced  his  suspicions,  if  he  suspected  Babb, 
he  would  have  taken  his  life  into  his  own  hands. 

No  immediate  arrests  were  made  in  connection  with  the 
Stull  murder. 

The  populace  were  stunned. 

They  did  not  know  which  way  to  turn. 

None  of  us  knew  whether  Babb  would  be  able  to  control 
the  courts  and  officers. 

Every  man  kept  his  own  counsel  in  order  that  he  might 
preserve  his  life. 

Men  went  armed  to  the  teeth. 

There  was  a  premonition  of  terror  and  danger  in  the  very 
atmosphere. 

Father  felt  it  and  so  did  I,  but  I  was  a  newspaper  re- 
porter, and  as  such  I  did  my  duty.  I  sent  the  account  in  full 
to  The  Waco  Telephone,  and  that  publication  gave  to  the 
world  the  first  news  of  the  great  Stull  tragedy. 


XXIX 

MORE  ABOUT  THE  STULL  MURDER  AND  ITS 
CONSEQUENCES 

THE  report  which  I  sent  to  The  Waco  Telephone  was 
telegraphed  by  Waco  reporters  to  all  the  great  dai- 
lies of  the  United  States.  In  many  of  its  features, 
the  StuU  murder  was  the  most  remarkable  ever  known  in 
the  Southwest.  In  Waco  there  were  enterprising  news-gath- 
erers and  correspondents  of  the  metropolitan  dailies  who 
were  intimately  familiar  with  the  Vaughan  murder,  Stull's 
arrest  of  the  Babbs,  and  with  the  sentiment  in  the  Tur- 
nersville  country  to  the  effect  that  the  Babbs  were  connected 
with  the  Stull  affair.  These  correspondents  adapted  my  re- 
port of  the  details  of  the  crime,  and  when  they  sent  their 
stories  to  the  metropolitan  dailies,  the  names  of  Babb  and  his 
lieutenants  were  published,  along  with  the  grim  recital  of 
the  tragedy. 

That  precipitated  upon  the  western  correspondent  of  The 
Waco  Telephone  and  one  of  his  good  friends,  P.  R.  (better 
known  as  Bob)  Hobin,  a  very  serious  situation.  The  news 
quickly  reached  the  ears  of  Babb  that  I  had  sent  the  report 
of  the  Stull  killing  to  all  of  these  papers,  and  that  in  this 
diabolism  I  had  been  aided  and  abetted  by  my  good  friend. 
Bob  Hobin,  who,  until  quite  recently,  had  been  the  trusted 
manager  of  Babb's  big  store  up  at  Babbville.  A  slight  mis- 
understanding had  ensued,  with  the  result  that  Hobin  had 
resigned,  and  at  the  time  of  the  Stull  killing  he  was  clerking 
and  bookkeeping  at  Turnersville  in  the  store  of  old  Uncle 

229 


230       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Johnnie  Henderson,  Babb's  chief  competitor.  Hobin  and  I 
heard  that  this  piece  of  malicious  news  had  reached  Babb. 

He  and  I  held  a  council  of  war.  In  the  meantime,  I  had 
completed  my  preparations  for  entering  upon  the  practice  of 
medicine.  When  our  conference  was  held,  I  took  the  course 
that  always  has  been  mine  when  confronted  with  a  crisis.  I 
told  Hobin  that  the  only  safe  procedure  was  to  go  direct  to 
see  Bill  Babb,  and  frankly  tell  him  all  the  facts.  Hobin  was 
averse  to  making  the  visit.  He  was  an  Irishman,  having  re- 
ceived his  training  in  Ireland  and  England.  He  was  an  ac- 
complished business  man  of  high  character,  but  although  he 
had  been  in  the  west  even  then  for  several  years,  he  had  not 
become  accustomed  to  wild  western  ways.  However,  upon 
my  very  earnest  insistence,  he  agreed  that  on  the  following 
day  he  and  I  would  visit  the  home  of  Babb  and  tell  him  our 
story. 

It  was  a  beautiful  spring  day.  It  had  been  now  some  two 
months  since  the  murder  of  StuU,  and  while  spring  had  not 
yet  burst  upon  us  in  full  bloom,  the  day  was  one  of  those 
rare  February  visitations  when  the  birds  were  singing  and 
the  trees  and  flowers  were  seeking  to  burgeon  into  bloom. 
I  carried  with  me  a  copy  of  The  Daily  Telephone  containing 
the  only  account  of  which  I  was  the  author.  Hobin  had  sent 
out  absolutely  nothing  to  any  paper  whatsoever,  so  he  car- 
ried no  journalistic  literature  in  his  baggage.  We  were  both 
well  armed  with  Colt  revolvers.  We  knew  that  Babb  was 
well  surrounded  by  his  confederates,  and  we  would  stand  no 
show  whatever  if  a  battle  were  precipitated,  but  we  held 
to  the  traditional  habit,  and  were  prepared  for  either  peace 
or  war. 

As  we  approached  Babb's  spacious  grounds,  he  was  out 
in  the  front  yard  wrestling  with  a  large  pet  bear.  He  was 
a  man  of  unusual  appearance  in  every  way,  was  then  in  the 
prime  of  life,  and  a  most  impressive  figure.  He  was  5  feet 
10  inches  tall,  a  veritable  athlete,  and  wore  a  long  black 


THE  STULL  MURDER  231 

beard.  His  eyes  were  keen  and  piercing,  and  as  black  as  a 
raven's  wing.  And  there  was  a  devil-may-care  atmosphere 
with  which  Babb  was  naturally  surrounded. 

Babb  knew  us  both  quite  well,  and  welcomed  us  most 
kindly.  Very  soon  Dave  Ware  came  up,  and  we  all  sat, 
cowboy  fashion,  out  on  the  grass  on  the  front  lawn.  We 
made  no  concealment  of  the  purpose  of  our  visit.  I  was  the 
spokesman.  I  told  Babb  without  circumlocution  what  we 
had  heard,  and  then  recited  to  him  all  the  facts.  I  found 
that  he  had  copies  of  all  the  great  daily  newspapers  of  the 
United  States.  So  far  from  being  offended  at  the  accounts 
contained  in  these  great  journals,  it  seemed  to  me  that  he 
felt  complimented.  However,  if  he  had  known  who  were 
the  authors  of  those  stories,  he  would  have  felt  vindictive. 
In  a  little  while,  we  had  satisfied  him  thoroughly.  I  never 
shall  forget  the  kind  expression  on  his  face  as  he  extended 
his  hand  to  both  of  us  and  said : 

"  Boys,  do  not  be  uneasy.  I  now  know  all  the  facts.  I 
believe  every  word  you  have  told  me,  and  you  need  never 
fear  any  harm  from  me." 

We  knew  what  that  meant,  coming  from  Bill  Babb.  It 
was  his  declaration  of  peace  and  friendship.  There  was  no 
compulsion  to  bind  him  to  his  word,  but  whatever  were  his 
faults,  no  one  ever  charged  Babb  with  betraying  a  friend. 

A  little  later,  Babb,  his  son,  Bill  Ike,  Dave  Ware,  Jasper 
Whitley,  and  some  half  a  dozen  others  of  the  Babb  clan,  were 
arrested,  charged  with  the  StuU  murder.  An  enemy  of  Babb 
had  filed  a  complaint  against  them.  Babb  and  his  crowd, 
on  being  taken  to  Gatesville,  the  county  seat,  were  bound 
over  to  await  the  action  of  the  grand  jury. 

The  arrest  of  the  Babbs  created  great  excitement  through- 
out Coryell  and  Hamilton  Counties,  and  there  was  a  sup- 
pressed feeling  of  uneasiness,  even  as  far  as  the  edge  of 
McLennan  County.  Stull  had  a  brother,  Hi  Stull,  who  lived 
some  distance  from  the  John  Stull  home  down  toward  Waco. 


232       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

Beyond  a  doubt,  he  had  instigated  the  complaint  against  the 
Babbs  for  the  murder  of  his  brother.  A  little  later  Hi  Stull 
was  waylaid  and  killed,  no  one  ever  knew  by  whom.  This 
completed  the  extermination  of  the  Stull  family. 

The  Babbs  appeared  before  the  grand  jury,  of  which  N.  G. 
Buchanan,  for  whom  Buchanan's  Spring  was  named,  was 
foreman.  Buchanan's  Spring  was  the  fountain  head  of  Mid- 
dle Bosque,  where  Turnersville  was  located.  N.  G.  Buch- 
anan had  settled  there  some  time  in  the  '  6o's.  He  was  in 
the  prime  of  life  and  was  held  in  high  esteem.  He  was  a 
deacon  in  the  Missionary  Baptist  church,  and  was  not  only 
a  citizen  of  high  standing,  but  was  prosperous  and  enter- 
prising in  every  way.  He  was  a  typical  frontiersman  and 
cowman.  He  was  a  man  of  very  few  words,  but  was  as  true 
as  steel  in  every  relation  of  life. 

The  details  of  this  story  that  I  am  now  beginning  to  recite 
were  given  me  by  N.  G.  Buchanan  thirty  years  after  the  sit- 
ting of  that  Coryell  County  grand  jury.  Some  years  ago, 
while  walking  through  the  Dallas  Fair  Grounds,  I  ran  into 
N.  G.  Buchanan,  then  an  old  man  of  seventy-five.  If  he 
had  changed  a  particle,  the  change  was  not  visible  to  the 
naked  eye.  He  had  about  him  the  same  nonchalant  fron- 
tier air,  and  there  were  no  physical  signs  to  indicate  that  he 
had  almost  reached  his  four  score  years.  Soon  we  found  a 
seat  and  began  to  talk  about  old  times.  It  was  during  this 
conversation  that  he  told  me  the  inside  grand  jury  facts  I 
am  now  going  to  recite. 

As  stated,  the  Babbs  went  before  the  Coryell  County  grand 
jury.  All  of  them  were  present  and  ready  to  be  sworn.  Bill 
Babb  himself  was  called  before  the  grand  jury  first,  and  it 
was  he  who  was  the  spokesman  of  his  crowd.  This  is  the 
speech  he  made : 

"  Mr.  Buchanan  and  Members  of  the  Coryell  County 
Grand  Jury :  I  am  before  you  to  answer  a  complaint  that 
has  been  filed  against  me  and  my  friends  for  the  killing  of 


THE  STULL  MURDER  233 

John  Stull.  I  make  no  answer  to  that  complaint  whatso- 
ever, but  I  have  come  to  have  a  friendly  talk  as  man  to  man 
about  our  situation.  Whether  I  am  guilty  of  the  Stull  kill- 
ing or  not  is  of  no  immediate  consequence  in  the  statement 
I  am  now  to  make.  All  of  you  are  citizens  of  this  county. 
We  have  had  much  trouble.  Many  men  have  been  killed. 
The  time  has  come  when  all  of  us  should  wish  the  period  of 
bloodshed  to  terminate.  I  heartily  agree  to  this  just  view. 
All  of  you  know  that  if  you  indict  me  and  my  friends  for 
the  killing  of  John  Stull,  we  can  never  get  through  with  the 
trial  of  the  case  without  the  sacrifice  of  many  other  lives. 
I  may  be  killed;  my  men  may  be  killed,  but  while  this  is 
going  on,  other  men  will  also  die.  You  know  us  and  we 
know  you.  You  know  that  we  are  dead  game,  that  we  are 
good  shots  and  that  we  are  quick  to  avenge  a  wrong.  All 
of  this  we  all  should  greatly  desire  to  avoid. 

"  If  you  will  listen  to  me  and  heed  my  plea,  none  of  this 
bloodshed  will  occur.  If  you  gentlemen  of  the  grand  jury 
will  not  indict  me  and  my  men,  we  will  within  ten  days  from 
this  day  gather  up  our  cattle,  close  out  our  lands  and  belong- 
ings, and  leave  Coryell  County  forever.  I  leave  the  subject 
with  you,  gentlemen,  and  await  your  decision." 

The  members  of  the  grand  jury  were  amazed  and  stupe- 
fied. Here  was  a  man  who  had  the  nerve  to  ask  every  one 
of  them  to  violate  his  official  oath.  It  was  an  invitation  to 
them  to  over-ride  the  law.  At  first  Babb's  proposal  was 
treated  with  scorn  and  indignation,  but  the  more  the  mem- 
bers of  the  grand  jury  discussed  the  matter,  the  more  sane 
and  sensible  Babb's  suggestion  seemed.  At  last,  after  de- 
liberating upon  the  question  two  whole  days,  the  grand  jury 
sent  for  Babb  and  announced  to  him  that  they  accepted  his 
offer.  They  told  him  that  they  expected  him  to  be  absolutely 
bound  by  his  agreement,  and  to  immediately,  certainly  within 
the  ten  days  named,  leave  Coryell  County  and  take  all  of  his 
lieutenants  and  belongings  with  him. 


234       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

While  this  was  a  unique  way  for  the  law  to  be  adminis- 
tered, all  hands  believed  it  was  wholly  for  the  best.  I  was 
personally  in  Gatesville  while  this  was  going  on,  but  at  the 
time  I  did  not  know  the  inside  facts.  I  was  present  while 
the  grand  jury  was  investigating  the  case  against  the  Babbs. 
It  happened  that  the  horse  I  rode  to  Gatesville  broke  loose 
and  ran  back  to  the  Hog  Creek  home.  The  result  was  that 
I  borrowed  a  horse  and  saddle  from  one  of  Babb's  men,  and 
rode  the  animal  back  home,  with  the  promise  that  I  would 
see  that  he  was  returned  to  them  next  day. 

And  now  comes  the  remarkable  sequel.  When  Babb  and 
his  men  reached  home,  they  held  a  council  of  war.  They 
agreed  among  themselves  that  the  conditions  which  Babb 
had  proposed,  and  which  had  been  accepted,  were  too  hard, 
and  they  decided  they  would  not  leave  Coryell  County. 
Therein  Babb  and  his  cabinet  made  a  colossal  blunder.  They 
did  not  know  the  temper  of  the  people.  If  they  had  gone 
on,  as  they  had  promised,  it  would  have  been  the  end  of  the 
StuU  affair,  but  they  wavered,  hesitated  and  continued  to 
conduct  their  affairs  in  the  same  old  way. 

A  sensational  incident  occurred.  The  grand  jury  ad- 
journed and  went  to  their  several  homes.  They  were  repre- 
sentative men  from  the  various  sections  of  the  county.  In 
that  period  of  West  Texas  development,  the  men  of  promi- 
nence and  power  were  all  old-time  frontiersmen.  They  car- 
ried their  side  arms,  they  were  alert  and  they  were  brave. 
After  it  was  known  among  the  members  of  the  grand  jury 
that  Babb  and  his  followers  had  made  up  their  minds  to 
violate  the  solemn  compact  into  which  all  had  entered,  these 
grand  jurors  became  suddenly  quite  busy.  The  facts  of 
Babb's  agreement  to  leave  the  country  were  communicated 
to  a  few  tried  leaders.  The  result  was  that  some  three 
weeks  after  the  adjournment  of  the  grand  jury,  one  of  the 
largest  meetings  ever  held  in  West  Texas  convened  at  mid- 
night at  Four  Mile  Spring  in  Coryell  County  to  discuss  the 


THE  STULL  MURDER  235 

situation.  Four  Mile  Spring  received  its  name  from  the  fact 
that  it  is  on  the  Jonesboro  road  exactly  four  miles  from  the 
Gatesville  Court  House.  On  a  bright  moonlight  night  in  the 
early  summer,  400  earnest,  courageous,  grizzled  West  Texas 
citizens,  many  of  whom  had  seen  service  in  the  Confederate 
army,  and  many  others  who  had  performed  scout  and  ranger 
duty  on  the  great  frontier,  met  at  this  Four  Mile  Spring  to 
deliberate  concerning  the  serious  situation  in  which  Coryell 
County  found  itself.  They  did  not  mince  words.  With  ab- 
solute unanimity  they  agreed  that  the  Babbs  had  to  go,  and 
at  once.  After  giving  the  matter  due  consideration,  a  com- 
mittee of  five  was  appointed  to  visit  Babb  and  tell  him  the 
result  of  the  meeting.  I  know  some  of  the  names  of  this 
committee,  but  inasmuch  as  a  majority  of  them  are  still  liv- 
ing, I  will  not  write  them  here. 

Next  day  the  committee  went  to  Babbville  and  interviewed 
Babb.  It  was  the  most  serious  interview  in  which  the  Baron 
of  Coryell  County  had  ever  been  engaged.  They  told  him 
plainly  that  if  he  and  his  did  not  promptly  gather  their  cattle, 
pick  up  their  wares  and  leave  Coryell  County  never  to  re- 
turn, there  would  be  400  fearless  citizens  who  would  swoop 
down  upon  them  and  exterminate  them  root  and  branch. 
They  told  Babb  that  it  was  their  purpose  to  kill  every  man  of 
them,  at  whatever  cost,  and  to  wipe  them  absolutely  off  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

Babb  made  another  promise.  The  man  who  had  terrorized 
an  entire  section  of  Texas  for  twenty  years,  was  at  last  at 
bay.  New  blood  had  come  into  the  county.  New  courage 
had  been  infused  into  the  people's  hearts,  and  once  and  for 
all,  the  best  citizenship  of  the  county  meant  for  Babb  to 
journey  to  other  fields. 

This  time  Babb  and  all  of  his  coterie  of  followers  and 
hangers-on  made  their  preparations  to  depart.  In  less  than 
ten  days  he  had  sold  his  land,  gathered  his  cattle,  had 
selected  such  things  as  he  desired  to  move,  had  sold  the  rest 


236       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

and  was  on  the  high  road  to  the  unsettled  section  of  West 
Texas.  I  never  knew  exactly  where  the  Babb  contingent 
landed,  but  was  told  that  they  went  far  out  upon  the  plains 
and  began  life  anew.  This  in  short  is  the  story  of  the 
Vaughan  murder  and  its  consequences. 

Before  dismissing  this  recital,  I  feel  it  but  just  to  add 
somewhat  to  my  observations  concerning  Bill  Babb.  He  was 
the  most  generous-hearted  man  in  Coryell  County.  He 
helped  more  widows  and  succored  more  orphans  than  per- 
haps any  man  that  county  ever  knew.  That  he  was  brave, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  That  he  was  a  born  leader  of  men,  is 
equally  true.  An  incident  occurred  a  year  or  so  before  the 
killing  of  Stull  that  left  its  impress  upon  Waco  and  West 
Texas  in  all  circles  where  the  facts  were  known. 

Babb  did  his  banking  in  Waco.  The  bank  failed.  Babb 
had  on  deposit  in  the  bank  $6,000.  He  took  two  of  his  men 
and  journeyed  to  Waco  to  look  after  his  financial  interests. 
After  reaching  Waco  and  interviewing  those  who  had  charge 
of  the  bank's  affairs,  he  was  told  that  they  could  not  pay 
even  one  cent  on  the  dollar.  He  asked  for  a  private  and 
personal  interview  with  the  managers  of  the  defunct  finan- 
cial institution.  They  went  to  his  hotel  and  he  invited  them 
into  his  room.  He  then  deliberately  locked  the  door  of  the 
room  and  put  the  key  in  his  pocket.  After  that,  taking  out 
a  well  loaded  and  primed  revolver,  he  read  the  riot  act  to 
these  bankers  in  the  following  words : 

"  Gentlemen :  I  deposited  $6,000  of  my  money  in  your 
bank.  Your  bank  has  failed.  I  have  been  advised  by  you 
that  you  cannot  pay  as  much  as  one  cent  on  the  dollar.  That 
is  a  mistake.  You  are  going  to  pay  me  one  hundred  cents 
on  the  dollar.  I  will  allow  you  to  take  your  choice  between 
paying  me  every  cent  of  my  deposit  or  dying  right  here  and 
now  in  this  room.    Which  will  you  choose  ?  " 

The  two  men  looked  into  each  other's  eyes,  and  then  they 
looked  at  Babb.    It  was  one  of  the  quickest  trades  ever  made 


THE  STULL  MURDER  237 

in  Waco.  They  told  Babb  that  he  could  get  his  money.  He 
then  unlocked  the  door,  went  down  with  them  to  a  private 
vault,  was  handed  the  money  in  gold,  where  it  was  stored 
away  in  shot  sacks,  and  went  on  his  way.  He  journeyed 
to  the  store  of  Battle,  Ficklin  &  Co.,  where  my  old-time 
friend,  Captain  John  T.  Battle,  was  in  charge  of  affairs,  and 
left  the  gold  with  him. 

There  was  another  very  picturesque  thing  about  Bill  Babb. 
When  he  was  drinking,  he  always  hugged  the  men  that  he 
loved,  and  after  embracing  them  most  tenderly,  would  bite 
his  good  friends'  ears.  That  was  his  familiar  and  affection- 
ate form  of  greeting.  Recently  in  a  conversation  with  Col. 
H.  N.  Atkinson,  who  was  one  of  Babb's  attorneys  during 
the  old  Coryell  County  days,  he  told  me  that  Babb  often 
thus  bit  his  ear  when  he  was  in  his  cups. 

One  further  incident  concerning  Babb  will  be  of  interest. 
Four  years  after  the  killing  of  John  Stull,  while  I  was  edi- 
tor of  The  Gatesville  Advance,  word  came  to  Gates ville  that 
Bill  Babb  was  dead.  The  story  was  credited,  because  he 
was  then  somewhat  over  fifty,  and  while  we  did  not  know 
the  manner  of  his  taking  off,  the  news  of  his  death  tormed 
the  basis  for  a  breezy  newspaper  article.  I  prepared  a  first 
page  leader  for  The  Gatesville  Advance,  which  made  some 
three  columns  of  as  good  western  biographical  and  obituary 
matter  as  I  had  ever  written.  I  spoke  of  Babb's  fine  points, 
and  while  I  did  not  seek  to  varnish  my  story  overmuch,  I  did 
what  every  writer  and  orator  should  do  when  speaking  of 
the  dead — I  referred  chiefly  to  the  noble  traits  of  the  de- 
parted Baron's  character. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  article  appeared  that  one  day 
I  saw  Dave  Babb,  another  son  of  Bill  Babb,  making  his  way 
diagonally  across  Leon  Street  and  approaching  my  office. 
He  had  a  smile  on  his  face  from  ear  to  ear.  As  he  ap- 
proached me,  he  extended  his  hand  and  said: 

"  Pa  told  me  to  tell  you  that  he  read  your  notice  of  his 


238       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

death  and  that  he  was  awfully  pleased  with  it.  He  said  that 
he  always  knew  you  were  his  friend,  and  now  that  you  have 
expressed  it  so  kindly  and  so  eloquently,  he  knows  it  better 
than  he  ever  did.  He  said  for  me  to  tell  you  that  he  was 
perfectly  well,  was  never  in  quite  as  good  health  in  his  life, 
and  that  he  expects  to  live  to  be  a  hundred  years  old." 

I  was  somewhat  embarrassed  at  this  peculiar  greeting, 
but  there  was  nothing  else  to  say  but  to  send  word  back  to 
Babb  that  I  rejoiced  in  the  fact  that  he  was  still  alive,  and 
wished  him  all  good  luck.  That  was  the  last  time  I  ever  saw 
any  of  the  Babbs. 

I  do  not  charge  that  Babb  was  guilty  of  the  Stull  murder. 
He  may  have  been  as  innocent  as  you  and  I.  My  informa- 
tion is  that  he  is  still  alive  and  an  octogenarian.  Long  ago 
his  preacher  brother  went  on  to  try  the  realities  of  the  gos- 
pel which  he  preached.  I  wish  that  I  were  in  possession  of 
yet  other  and  salient  facts  concerning  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  Babbs  and  their  lieutenants,  but  I  cannot  tell  what 
I  do  not  know,  and  I  have  recorded  these  occurrences  just 
as  they  transpired  to  preserve  the  chronology  and  consis- 
tency of  this  life  story,  and  at  the  same  time  inform  the 
reader  concerning  a  very  important  epoch  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Coryell  and  other  West  Texas  counties. 


XXX 

A  BACKWARD  LOOK  AT  THE  CRAWFORD  DAYS 

WHILE  I  had  left  Crawford  and  all  its  activities 
and  joys,  I  think  it  well  to  glance  once  more  at 
some  incidents  that  may  be  of  interest  to  the 
reader.  While  I  was  engaged  in  teaching  my  last  school 
there,  a  friend  of  mine,  Robert  T.  Dennis,  fell  ill  of  typhoid 
fever.  His  physician  was  a  doctor  of  the  old  school.  He 
refused  to  give  my  friend  either  lemons  or  ice.  He  in- 
sisted, however,  upon  dosing  him  with  calomel  and  chola- 
gogues,  with  the  result  that  Dennis  was  rapidly  approaching 
his  end.  I  was  not  only  his  nurse,  but  had  to  save  him 
from  his  doctor.  I  was  then  far  advanced  in  my  medical 
studies,  and  in  addition  to  having  read  the  books,  I  had 
some  notions  of  my  own.  I  made  it  a  point  to  violate  most 
of  the  instructions  of  the  doctor,  and  that  saved  his  life.  I 
secured  lemons  and  ice  from  Waco,  dosed  him  with  copious 
draughts  of  lemonade,  kept  him  cool  as  well  as  I  could  do 
with  ice  packs,  and  in  general  so  handled  the  case  that  after 
a  long  illness,  he  emerged  from  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death  and  is  a  strong,  well  man  today. 

It  was  not  known  to  his  physician  then,  and  is  as  yet  un- 
known to  many  who  have  graduated  in  medical  colleges  and 
whose  diplomas  are  nicely  framed  and  hung  in  their  offices, 
that  the  juice  of  the  lemon  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  germi- 
cides. At  that  time,  it  had  not  been  revealed  that  typhoid 
fever  was  infectious,  but  that  is  well  known  now. 

A  ten  per  cent  solution  of  lemon  juice  will  kill  a  cholera 

239 


240       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

germ.  It  is  a  very  valuable  beverage,  and  a  great  adjunct 
in  the  treatment  of  many  cases  of  illness. 

I  had  not  exercised  my  gift  (if  I  had  a  gift)  as  a  minis- 
ter to  any  great  extent  since  I  landed  in  the  Crawford  coun- 
try. My  ministrations  were  limited  almost  exclusively  to 
funerals.  The  first  of  these  was  a  very  peculiar  one.  My 
good  friend  and  school  patron,  J.  T.  FuUen,  wanted  the 
body  of  his  wife  removed  from  one  cemetery  to  another, 
and  when  the  body  was  consigned  to  its  final  resting  place, 
asked  me  to  conduct  some  services  over  the  remains.  This 
was  my  first  Crawford  funeral,  but  it  was  not  the  last.  There 
was  no  resident  minister  of  any  denomination,  so  that  it 
fell  to  my  lot  to  conduct  all  the  funerals  in  that  neighbor- 
hood during  the  period  of  my  residence  there. 

This  is  a  work  from  which  I  always  shrank.  I  have  an 
inherent  sympathy  for  all  who  are  bereaved,  and  throughout 
my  entire  life,  as  best  I  could,  I  have  ministered  to  the  sick, 
the  sad  and  the  suffering.  While  this  is  true,  I  have  always 
wished  to  avoid  conducting  funerals.  My  sympathies  are 
too  strong,  and  my  heart  goes  out  with  too  much  tenderness 
to  those  who  suffer,  for  me  to  be  able  really  to  do  a  great 
amount  of  this  class  of  Christian  work.  If  I  had  to  conduct 
as  many  funerals  as  fall  to  the  lot  of  some  of  our  busy  city 
pastors,  I  believe  it  would  kill  me.  While  this  is  true,  I 
found  this  to  be  my  duty  at  Crawford,  and  I  performed  it 
as  best  I  could. 

In  the  matter  of  preaching,  I  reached  the  conclusion  that 
I  never  should  have  announced  my  purpose  to  become  a 
minister.  On  careful  self-examination,  covering  a  period 
of  many  months,  I  was  convinced  that  I  was  not  the  gen- 
uine, blown-in-the-bottle  preacher  material.  I  never  could 
carry  around  with  me  for  any  length  of  time  a  long  and 
mournful  face;  I  never  could  acquire  the  preacher  tone;  I 
never  could  feel  at  home  in  the  preacher's  garb;  I  never 
could  assume  a  pietetic  air,  and  in  general  the  more  I  thought 


CRAWFORD  DAYS  241 

about  it,  the  more  I  feared  that  I  had  made  a  colossal  mis- 
take. For  that  reason  and  for  the  further  reason  that  my 
views  had  gradually  undergone  a  radical  change,  I  decided 
I  would  give  up  preaching.  I  was  not  now  in  sympathy  with 
the  views  of  the  Hardshell  Baptists,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
looking  back  upon  it  now  from  the  vantage  ground  of  ma- 
turer  years,  I  do  not  believe  I  ever  was  in  sympathy  with 
their  views.  This  feeling,  however,  grew  upon  me  while 
at  Crawford,  and  I  decided  that  I  not  only  would  give  up 
preaching,  but  that  I  would  sever  my  church  relationship 
as  soon  as  opportunity  should  offer.  This,  however,  I  did 
not  act  upon  at  once,  because  I  wished  to  be  absolutely  sure 
of  my  ground  and  desired  to  be  exceedingly  careful  lest  I 
make  a  lifelong  blunder. 

When  I  left  Crawford,  I  knew  that  I  would  never  live 
there  again.  I  meant  to  cast  my  lot  with  my  father  and  his 
interests  up  in  the  Hog  Creek  country,  and  this  I  did,  but  I 
cherish  the  memory  of  those  Crawford  friends  with  a  grate- 
ful heart,  and  ever  shall.  I  visited  the  little  village  many 
times  after  my  departure,  and  always  found  there  a  gracious, 
kindly  welcome. 


XXXI 

AS  A  COUNTRY  DOCTOR 

THE  winter  of  1878  passed  uneventfully.  One  fact 
perhaps  more  noteworthy  than  any  other,  except 
the  recital  already  given  concerning  the  Babb  regime, 
was  the  great  snowstorm  that  came  the  first  week  of  Janu- 
ary. The  snow  covered  the  ground  for  six  or  seven  days. 
Our  cattle  could  get  no  grass  at  all.  The  necessity  was 
upon  me  to  feed  every  head  of  father's  cattle  every  day. 
This  subjected  me  to  great  exposure,  but  I  never  was  health- 
ier in  my  life.  I  prosecuted  my  medical  studies  with  great 
diligence,  and  kept  abreast  also  with  the  developments  in 
the  phrenological  world.  During  that  winter,  the  only  other 
event  worthy  to  relate  was  my  phrenological  lectures  at  Tur- 
nersville.  I  sent  my  advertisements  there  during  the  early 
part  of  January,  1879,  ^^^  the  people  gave  me  a  very  cordial 
hearing.  Many  kind  faces  beamed  upon  me  from  those  old 
time  seats  in  the  Turnersville  school  house.  I  can  see  now 
the  faces  of  J.  P.  Kendrick,  Lum  Hardy,  W.  A.  Beatty,  Jim 
Burkett,  N.  G.  Buchanan,  Dr.  J.  D.  Calaway,  Joe  Gaston  and 
others  whose  names  I  have  not  space  to  write.  My  lecture 
engagement  at  Turnersville  was  a  glittering  success  in  every 
way  but  one — I  did  not  make  much  money.  I  did,  however, 
secure  some  compensation  for  my  work,  and  this  money  I 
used  in  the  purchase  of  much  needed  clothing  for  my  young 
wife  and  myself. 

On  February  i,  1879,  my  wife  and  I  moved  to  Turners- 
ville to  make  that  village  our  future  home.  In  the  mean- 
time, I  had  gone  before  the  medical  examining  board,  of 

242 


AS  A  COUNTRY  DOCTOR  243 

which  Dr.  R.  J.  Perry,  of  Gatesville,  was  a  resident  member, 
and  had  secured  a  license  to  practice  medicine.  I,  however, 
had  no  funds,  and  so  my  precious  mother  loaned  me  out  of 
her  small  savings  $i6.  With  this  sum  I  bought  my  medical 
saddlebags,  and  with  the  help  of  my  father  I  supplied  my 
saddlebags  with  the  necessary  medicines. 

When  my  wife  and  I  went  over  to  Tumersville  to  take  up 
housekeeping,  we  rented  a  little  two-room  weather-boarded 
house.  While  this  house  was  weather-boarded  on  the  out- 
side, it  had  never  been  ceiled,  and  hence  it  was  not  a  very 
comfortable  winter  home.  The  rent  was  $3  a  month.  We 
had  some  bedding  that  had  been  given  us  by  my  wife's 
mother  and  my  mother,  and  managed  to  scrape  together 
enough  utensils  of  various  kinds  to  begin  housekeeping  in 
a  very  humble,  unpretentious  way.  We  had  no  dining  table. 
We  took  our  meals  off  of  the  smooth  side  of  a  large  dry- 
goods  box.  We  had  no  barn,  so  we  kept  the  feed  for  my 
pony  under  the  bed.  It  preserved  the  corn  and  other  prov- 
ender, and  at  the  same  time  this  feed  had  its  part  in  keep- 
ing out  the  boreal  blasts  of  the  keen  north  wind. 

I  had  sold  ''  Old  Ball."  He  was  growing  old,  and  I  felt 
it  wise  to  let  him  go.  I  did  not  now  need  so  large  a  horse, 
so  I  traded  him  off,  receiving  for  him  some  corn  and  other 
belongings,  and  a  splendid  little  sorrel  pony.  He  was  not 
half  as  big  as  "  Old  Ball,"  but  was  wiry,  thrifty  and  very 
usable.  I  retained  my  saddle  and  other  equipments,  and 
it  was  thus  that  on  February  i,  1879,  I  hung  out  my  shingle 
as  a  full-fledged  doctor. 

Looking  back  upon  it  now,  with  my  present  larger  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  it  seems  to  me  that  there  never  was  a 
greater  exhibition  of  heroic  ignorance  than  was  manifest 
in  this  procedure.  Without  means,  without  expert  medical 
training,  without  friends,  without  reputation,  without  expe- 
rience, and  practically  without  acquaintance,  I  began  my 
career  as  a  doctor  before  I  was  twenty-one  years  old. 


244       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

But  we  were  happy.  It  was  the  happiness  of  ignorance, 
innocence  and  inexperience  linked  together.  It  was  a  con- 
crete verification  of  the  truth  of  that  Scripture  which  says 
that  a  man's  happiness  does  not  consist  in  the  abundance  of 
the  things  which  he  possesses. 

Dr.  J.  D.  Calaway,  the  old  accredited  physician  of  Tur- 
nersville,  was  a  most  excellent  man.  He  was  then  in  the 
prime  of  life,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  splendid  practice. 
He  held  the  confidence  and  esteem  of  the  people,  and  to  all 
outward  appearances  was  invulnerable.  Personally,  he 
seemed  fond  of  me,  but  professionally  he  spoke  of  me  in 
that  nonchalant,  ofT-hand,  indulgent  manner  that  old  doctors 
assume  when  they  discuss  the  fledglings  of  the  profession. 

"  Yes,"  he  would  say,  "  that  young  man  Cranfill  is  a  right 
bright  hoy.  If  he  lives  to  reach  the  years  of  maturity,  and 
meantime  can  take  advantage  of  a  medical  college  education, 
he  may  make  a  good  physician." 

If  the  good  man  had  denounced  me  as  a  horse-thief,  cut- 
throat, pirate  or  highway  robber,  it  would  have  been  much 
better  for  my  future  as  a  physician  than  the  faint  praise 
with  which  he  consigned  me  to  professional  damnation. 

Three  months  passed — long,  wearisome,  heart-breaking 
months.  While  we  had  sufficient  food  to  keep  the  wolf  of 
starvation  from  actually  entering  the  door,  it  howled  might- 
ily around  the  front  steps.  I  was  not  earning  a  penny  and 
so  I  fell  behind  three  months  with  my  house  rent.  That 
amounted  to  $9.  This  debt  harassed  me.  It  hung  over  me 
like  a  pall.  I  had  never  before  been  so  hopelessly  in  debt 
without  means  for  earning  money  with  which  to  liquidate. 
I  was  becoming  desperate.  I  knew  that  some  turn  must  be 
made.  I  had  not  been  able  to  pay  my  mother  back  a  cent 
of  her  $16.  The  dear,  affectionate,  loving,  indulgent  soul 
would  have  been  more  than  willing  to  give  me  all  this  money, 
but  I  could  not  in  conscience  accept  it  in  that  way,  so  that 


AS  A  COUNTRY  DOCTOR  245 

$i6  and  the  $9  aggregated  $25,  which  represented  a  verita- 
ble millstone  that  hung  around  my  neck. 

I  was  never  given  to  idleness.  During  the  time  of  this 
enforced  quietude,  I  kept  up  my  studies  in  many  directions. 
I  continued  writing  for  The  Waco  Telephone,  but  that  yield- 
ed no  revenue.  That  was  before  the  days  when  Texas  news- 
papers, especially  of  the  middle  class,  remunerated  their  cor- 
respondents. All  that  this  alignment  did  for  me  was  to  give 
me  some  little  prestige  in  the  community.  I  secured  some 
subscribers  for  the  paper,  but  this  did  not  bring  me  any 
financial  return  whatsoever,  because  the  paper  was  given 
to  subscribers  at  introductory  prices. 

But  I  had  not  forgotten  my  phrenology.  Nine  miles 
away,  spanning  the  county  line  between  Hamilton  and  Cory- 
ell Counties,  was  a  village  called  Jonesboro.  It  was  some- 
what more  pretentious  than  Turnersville,  though  not  an 
older  town.  It  had  more  stores,  and  somewhat  larger  ones, 
and  more  professional  men.  I  decided  to  announce  a  course 
of  phrenological  lectures  at  Jonesboro,  and  found  in  that 
city  a  friend  of  former  years  in  the  person  of  Rev.  Dozier 
White,  the  Hardshell  preacher  who  in  the  autumn  of  1876 
was  present  at  the  little  Hog  Creek  church  when  I  applied 
for  membership.  He  remembered  me,  and  was  a  friend  of 
my  father.  He  and  his  family  gladly  extended  to  me  their 
hospitality  on  my  visit  to  Jonesboro,  and  did  all  they  could 
to  spread  the  news  of  the  approaching  lectures.  I  billed  the 
town  with  circulars  that  I  had  kept  over  from  a  former  lec- 
ture tour. 

My  lecture  experience  at  Jonesboro  was  successful  in 
every  way.  I  rode  my  little  sorrel  pony  over  there,  and  car- 
ried my  medical  saddlebags.  I  never  took  that  horse  to 
water  that  I  didn't  string  the  saddlebags  across  the  saddle, 
and  ride  out  in  the  most  consequential  fashion.  My  wife 
and  I  were  the  only  residents  of  Turnersville  that  knew  the 
facts.    Every  day  at  some  hour  of  the  day  I  would  dash  out 


246       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

on  my  sorrel  pony.  I  would  circle  around,  as  a  rule,  and 
go  down  to  see  my  father  and  mother,  or  look  after  some  of 
my  father's  cattle,  but  my  medical  saddlebags  were  glisten- 
ing with  freshness  and  newness,  and  you  could  hear  the 
smell  of  the  black  leather  a  mile  or  so  away. 

At  Jonesboro  I  entered  upon  a  career  of  phrenological 
success  hitherto  unprecedented.  I  had  large  audiences.  Most 
of  those  who  came  wished  phrenological  examinations ;  I  en- 
gaged to  write  a  large  number  of  charts.  When  I  left  Jones- 
boro after  the  week's  experience,  I  had  more  than  enough 
money  to  pay  my  house  rent,  and  having  taken  some  barter 
in  exchange  for  my  scientific  services,  I  carried  in  my  hand 
on  the  little  sorrel  pony  all  the  way  from  Jonesboro  to  Tur- 
nersville  a  splendid,  bright,  glistening,  new  coal-oil  student 
lamp  that  we  greatly  needed.  When  I  reached  home,  my 
wife,  who  had  lived  alone  during  the  days  of  my  absence, 
rejoiced  to  see  me,  and  she  was  especially  pleased  when  she 
found  that  I  had  earned  sufficient  funds  with  which  to  dis- 
charge our  pressing  indebtedness,  and  had  brought  to  her 
the  splendid  new  parlor  lamp.  Our  parlor,  as  you  may 
know,  was  a  room  about  lo  x  12,  which  also  served  as  a 
bedroom,  a  living  room,  a  piano  room  (minus  the  piano),  a 
sitting  room  and  a  corn-crib. 


XXXII 
MY  FIRST  PATIENT  AND  THE  CONSEQUENCES 

SOME  two  weeks  after  I  had  returned  from  my  lecture 
engagement  at  Jonesboro,  one  evening  at  twilight  a 
man  galloped  up  to  the  door  of  our  little  two-room 
cabin  and  asked  if  Dr.  CranfiU  were  at  home. 

Yes,  the  doctor  was  at  home. 

He  was  perhaps  more  addicted  to  the  at-home  habit  than 
any  professional  gentleman  resident  at  that  time  in  the  Lone 
Star  State. 

He  had  been  nowhere  but  at  home. 

He  had  lingered  at  home  day  and  night  and  Sunday. 

With  the  exception  of  the  little  trip  to  Jonesboro,  which 
was  not  made  in  the  interest  of  the  sick  and  suffering,  he 
had  been  steadily  at  home  for  almost  four  months. 

Yes,  the  doctor  was  at  home,  and  so  announced  himself, 
whereupon  the  visitor  said  it  was  desired  that  he  should  go 
and  see  Mrs.  Blank,  who  resided  some  six  miles  away,  up 
on  the  divide  between  Babbville  and  Gatesville. 

I  cannot  begin  to  describe  the  sensations  that  thrilled  me 
as  I  saddled,  bridled  and  equipped  the  little  sorrel  pony  for 
that  first  professional  engagement.  It  was  a  historic  hour. 
My  wife  was  all  athrill  with  the  excitement  of  the  moment, 
and  hastening  to  give  me  a  bite  of  supper  (we  had  not  yet 
"  dined,")  she  bade  me  Godspeed  on  my  initial  professional 
pilgrimage. 

Darkness  soon  closed  in  upon  us  with  great  earnestness, 
but  my  soul  was  illuminated  with  visions  of  professional 
achievement  and  success  that  it  had  not  held  before. 

247 


248       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

On  the  way  out,  I  learned  from  the  gentleman  who  had 
come  for  me  that  he  had  been  sent  for  Dr.  Calaway.  That 
was  a  revelation,  but  it  did  not  in  any  sense  dampen  my  de- 
sire to  fill  this  engagement.  He  stated  that  Dr.  Calaway  had 
declined  to  visit  this  patient  because  the  husband  of  the  sick 
woman  was  not  good  pay.  I  learned  afterwards  that  there 
was  another  reason  why  Dr.  Calaway  did  not  answer  this 
call,  and  it  was  a  most  important  one.  When  he  secured 
from  the  courier  a  description  of  the  woman's  illness,  he 
knew  that  she  was  going  to  die,  and  this,  coupled  with  the 
companion  fact  that  there  was  no  pay  in  the  visit,  made  it 
a  good  time  to  break  the  fledgling  in,  and  so  he  sent  the  man 
for  me. 

I  reached  the  sick  room  in  less  than  an  hour  after  the  call 
had  come.  The  family  were  very  poor.  All  the  surround- 
ings were  indicative  of  the  hardest  of  hard  times.  They 
lived  in  a  little  two-room  house,  ill-kept  and  poorly  fur- 
nished. The  good  woman  was  desperately  ill  with  what  the 
doctors  call  puerperal  peritonitis.  Her  little  baby  was  about 
ten  days  old,  and  when  I  reached  her,  was  nestling  in  its 
mother's  arms.  As  soon  as  I  saw  the  sick  woman's  face  and 
made  an  examination  of  the  case,  I  knew  that  her  hours  on 
earth  were  few.  However,  she  was  perfectly  conscious. 
She  greatly  desired  to  get  well.  After  prescribing  for  her, 
I  sought  a  private  interview  with  her  husband,  and  told  him 
that  his  wife  would  not  live  more  than  twenty- four  hours, 
if  she  lived  that  long.  The  news  was  not  unexpected,  but 
he  was  shocked  when  the  doctor  told  him  so. 

I  did  all  that  any  physician  could  have  done.  I  relieved 
her  pain,  which  was  intense,  and  made  her  just  as  comfort- 
able as  possible,  and  while  I  knew  that  she  was  bound  to 
die,  I  worked  just  as  patiently  and  industriously  for  her 
restoration  as  if  I  had  been  more  hopeful  of  the  outcome. 

It  was  past  midnight  when  I  went  home.  I  would  not 
have  gone  home  at  all  that  night  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 


MY  FIRST  PATIENT  249 

fact  that  I  wished  to  secure  the  attendance  of  my  friend  and 
confrere,  Dr.  Calaway,  to  counsel  with  me  upon  the  case  the 
following  day.  He  was  somewhat  reluctant  to  go  with  me 
next  morning,  but  I  told  him  that  he  had  to  go ;  that  I  was  a 
young  physician  on  my  first  professional  pins  and  that  I 
was  unwilling  for  my  first  case  to  die  upon  my  hands  with- 
out consultation.  Finally  he  agreed  to  go,  which  was  very 
kind  and  noble  in  him,  and  it  was  thus  that,  while  he  had,  no 
doubt,  originally  hoped  that  I  would  have  all  of  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  death  of  my  first  patient,  it  was  in  fact  di- 
vided between  us.    He  had  to  take  his  share. 

After  he  had  made  a  brief  visit  to  the  now  dying  woman, 
he  went  on  his  way.  I  lingered  by  her  bedside  until  the  end 
came,  and  then  gently  closed  her  eyes. 

I  have  had  many  moments  of  downright  mental,  physical 
and  spiritual  depression  as  I  have  gone  along,  but  I  think 
that  the  hour  in  which  I  rode  from  that  death  chamber  to  my 
little  home  was  the  darkest  period  of  my  youthful  years.  I 
felt  that  all  was  lost.  Here  I  had  secured  one  patient,  but 
there  was  no  money  in  the  case,  and  besides,  the  woman  was 
dead.  I  felt  sure  the  news  of  my  ill  success  would  be  cur- 
rent throughout  all  that  section  of  the  county,  and  I  was 
morally  certain  that  I  would  never  secure  another  call.  I 
later  learned  that  the  death  of  a  patient  in  no  wise  injures 
the  doctor's  standing. 

On  that  lonely  midnight  ride  the  night  before,  I  had  de- 
voutly prayed  for  this  young  mother's  recovery,  but  without 
faith.  I  knew  that  God  could  perform  a  miracle,  but  did 
not  believe  He  would.  I  made  it  a  rule  in  my  practice  to 
pray  for  help  from  a  Higher  Source,  and  have  always  be- 
lieved in  those  physicians  who  are  men  of  prayer.  Infidel 
doctors  have  never  appealed  to  me. 


XXXIII 

A  GROWING  MEDICAL  PRACTICE 

MY  mental  depression  was  of  short  duration.  While 
Mrs.  Blank  had  died,  I  had  made  a  distinct  im- 
pression upon  the  denizens  of  that  side-pocket  of 
Coryell  County  population.  Very  soon  I  was  called  to  an- 
other patient  in  that  section,  and  then  another,  and  so  it  was 
not  very  long  until  I  was  the  medical  adviser  of  nearly  all  the 
settlers  in  that  neighborhood. 

Meantime,  my  competitor  helped  me  very  much.  He  was 
very  fond  of  hunting.  No  matter  what  the  cost,  he  would 
at  intervals  lay  everything  down  and  go  hunting.  Game  was 
plentiful,  he  was  a  good  shot,  and  he  enjoyed  the  Nimrod 
life  very  greatly.  Not  that  I  had  at  that  time  ever  heard  of 
Nimrod.  I  am  putting  him  in  here  to  show  that  at  the  pres- 
ent writing  I  am  really  a  Bible  student  as  well  as  a  literary 
man.  If  anybody  had  talked  to  me  about  Nimrod  at  that 
period  of  my  career,  I  would  have  asked  him  where  old  man 
Nim  and  his  folks  came  from,  and  who  was  their  doctor. 

On  a  certain  night  when  Dr.  Calaway  was  out  on  a  hunt, 
I  was  sent  for,  post  haste,  to  attend  the  wife  of  G.  W. 
Alston,  one  of  our  leading  merchants.  I  did  not  know  him 
intimately,  but  in  a  village  like  Turnersville  every  one  soon 
knows  everyone  else.  Dr.  Calaway  had  been  engaged  for 
this  delicate  occasion,  but  he  was  now  absolutely  inaccessi- 
ble. Much  against  their  will,  and  as  the  only  resort,  they 
sent  for  the  beardless  young  doctor. 

I  was  on  hand  in  three  minutes  after  the  call  came,  look- 
ing as  wise  as  an  owl  and  as  sober  as  a  judge.    The  lady 

250 


J.  B.  Cranfill^  Tom  E.  Cranfill  and  Thomas  Mabry  Cranfil 


A  GROWING  MEDICAL  PRACTICE        251 

visitors  must  have  been  greatly  awed  by  my  assumption  of 
superior  acumen  and  expert  medical  knowledge.  This,  how- 
ever, was  the  first  case  of  this  kind  I  had  ever  attended 
alone.  Within  an  hour  after  my  arrival,  the  population  of 
Tumersville  had  been  increased  by  the  advent  of  a  majestic 
looking  gentleman,  who  forthwith  was  named  G.  W.  Alston, 
Jr.  He  was  a  lusty  boy,  and  weighed  perhaps  nine  pounds, 
but  the  story  went  abroad  that  he  tipped  the  beam  at  fifteen 
pounds.  (I  think  I  have  seen  this  expression,  "tipped  the 
beam,"  in  print  before.) 

My  success  in  this  case  spread  like  wildfire.  ("  Like  wild- 
fire "  is  entirely  new,  however.  I  guarantee  it.)  One  of  the 
ladies  in  attendance  was  the  wife  of  Dr.  Calaway.  She  was 
a  most  excellent  woman,  but  jealous  of  her  husband's  stand- 
ing, reputation  and  professional  achievements.  She  was  a 
daughter  of  old  Uncle  Johnnie  Henderson,  the  leading  mer- 
chant of  the  town.  I  thought  very  highly  of  her  then  and 
always  after,  but  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  doctor 
spirit  must  know  that  it  was  wormwood  and  gall  (where 
have  I  seen  those  words  ?)  to  Dr.  Calaway  and  his  wife  for 
the  young,  uncolleged  physician  to  infringe  upon  Dr.  Cala- 
way's  preserves.  From  that  time  forward,  my  practice  be- 
gan to  grow  by  leaps  and  bounds  (where  on  earth  can  I 
have  seen  those  four  words,  "by  leaps  and  bounds?")  in 
the  little  town  itself,  and  in  other  directions,  and  I  saw  the 
inspiring  dawn  of  professional  success. 

This  was  the  only  time  in  my  life  that  I  ever  lived  for 
long  in  a  rented  house.  As  soon  as  I  began  to  collect  some 
fees,  I  decided  that  we  would  have  a  home  of  our  own.  I 
therefore  paid  $50  for  an  acre  lot,  and  very  soon  thereafter 
a  little  home  of  two  rooms  was  planned  and  the  house 
erected. 

I  never  had  false  pride,  but  always  turned  my  hand 
promptly  and  without  fear  of  criticism  to  the  work  that 
needed  to  be  done.    In  a  short  interval  between  my  medical 


252       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

duties,  I  secured  a  team  and  hauled  from  Waco,  fifty  miles 
away,  the  lumber  with  which  to  build  our  cottage  home.  It 
was  a  box  house,  but  to  us  it  was  a  veritable  mansion.  We 
had  it  nicely  stripped  with  three-inch  strips,  and  a  good  roof 
put  on  it.  Uncle  Billy  Summers,  a  lonely  old  Irishman  with 
a  massive  frame,  a  tender  heart  and  a  wandering  mind,  built 
our  chimney  of  native  stone,  which  he  sawed  out  with  his 
own  hands. 

The  house  was  built  between  two  majestic,  overspreading 
liveoak  trees.  Nowhere  have  I  seen  such  arborial  wonders 
as  were  those  grand  old  monarchs  of  the  glade  that  skirted 
the  prairies  and  led  down  to  the  headwaters  of  Middle 
Bosque. 

These  old  trees  had  a  history.  They  had  seen  sorrow  and 
had  witnessed  tragedy.  Some  fifteen  years  before,  two 
Hardshell  Baptist  ministers.  Elders  White  and  Griffith,  were 
conducting  a  series  of  meetings  at  Cranfill  Gap  in  Bosque 
County.  Uncle  George  was  a  Hardshell  Baptist,  and  so 
were  all  his  family  except  Cousin  Sam,  of  whom  mention 
has  hitherto  been  made.  Cousin  Ross  Cranfill  was  a  captain 
of  scouts,  his  company  being  engaged  in  frontier  duty  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War.  It  was  near  the  end  of  the  struggle,  but 
it  was  just  as  important  for  him  to  patrol  the  border  at  that 
time  as  it  had  ever  been  before,  because  the  savages,  embol- 
dened by  the  absence  of  many  frontiersmen  who  had  joined 
the  Confederate  army,  were  committing  hideous  depreda- 
tions whenever  opportunity  offered. 

When  these  Hardshell  Baptist  ministers  started  across 
the  country  to  Lampasas,  my  cousin  suggested  an  escort. 
They  fell  back  upon  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  which  is 
a  magnificent  doctrine  and  abundantly  taught  in  the  Bible, 
but  is  intended  for  sensible  men.  Not  that  I  would  call  these 
dear  old  brethren  fools.  They  are  both  in  their  graves. 
They  simply  allowed  a  theological  fetich  to  warp  their  lives. 

They  declined  the  escort,  and  wending  their  way  toward 


Mrs.  Tom  E.  (Mai  Seay)  Cranfill  and  Children. 

On  Her  Left,  Isabel  and  Martha  Eleanor  and  on  Her  Right, 

MoNA  Mai  and  Thomas  Mabry  Cranfill. 


A  GROWING  MEDICAL  PRACTICE        253 

Lampasas  across  the  country,  in  which  at  that  time  there 
were  no  roads  of  any  kind,  they  finally  approached  the  glade 
to  which  I  have  referred.  As  they  neared  the  headwaters 
of  Middle  Bosque,  they  were  attacked  by  a  band  of 
Comanche  Indians.  They  had  no  arms  and,  of  course,  made 
no  resistance.  They  finally  took  a  stand  behind  these  two 
giant  liveoak  trees,  in  the  hope  that  their  lives  might  thus  be 
saved.  The  Indians  pressed  them  sorely,  with  the  result 
that  Elder  Griffith  died  in  the  very  spot  where  my  front  gate 
afterwards  stood,  and  Elder  White  was  left  for  dead.  There 
were  arrow  scars  in  these  lone  witnesses  of  that  frontier 
tragedy  when  I  bought  the  lot,  and  if  they  are  yet  left  stand- 
ing, they  are  doubtless  on  those  trees  today.  Elder  White 
was  picked  up  by  some  passing  frontiersmen  and  nursed 
back  into  life  again.  I  afterwards  heard  him  preach  in  the 
Gatesville  country,  but  he  was  never  quite  himself  after  this 
experience  with  the  savages. 


XXXIV 

MORE  ABOUT  LIFE  IN  THE  TURNERSVILLE 
COUNTRY 

THE  summer  of  1879  will  be  remembered  by  all  the 
old  settlers  in  that  section  of  Texas  as  the  year  of 
the  most  stringent  drouth  known  in  twenty  years. 
There  is  something  strange  in  this  recurrence  of  the  figure 
"  9  "  in  these  periods  of  drouth.  The  most  terrible  visita- 
tion of  that  kind  known  within  the  memory  of  civilized  men 
was  in  1859.  I  heard  my  father  speak  of  it  often.  That 
year  almost  all  the  water  courses  completely  dried  up.  Texas 
was  a  cattle  country,  and  the  cattle  died  literally  by  the  thou- 
sands. My  father  told  me  he  had  seen  as  many  as  a  thou- 
sand head  of  cattle  dead  around  one  desolate  water  pool. 
There  was  such  a  dearth  of  water  that  many  of  the  settlers 
suffered  excruciating  agony,  and  some  even  perished  from 
thirst. 

The  drouth  of  1879  was  of  like  kind,  although  in  some 
sections  possibly  not  quite  so  severe  as  the  drouth  of  twenty 
years  before.  Not  in  the  memory  of  man  had  Buchanan's 
Spring  been  dry,  but  that  summer  it  went  dry  utterly,  and 
so  did  all  the  wells  within  a  radius  of  ten  miles  of  Turners- 
ville.  There  was  but  one  possible  chance  for  drinking  and 
stock  water  left  in  the  Turnersville  country,  and  that  was 
from  Hughes  Spring,  a  mile  and  a  half  below  Turnersville. 
I  wish  I  knew  the  fountain  source  of  this  spring.  It  was 
not  great  in  size.  The  stream  was  perhaps  half  as  large  as 
a  man's  arm,  but  the  dry  weather  of  that  season  did  not 
phase  this  perennial  water  supply. 

254 


THE  LIFE  AT  TURNERSVILLE  255 

We  had  just  moved  into  our  new  two-room  home  when 
the  drouth  began.  In  a  little  while  thereafter,  Buchanan 
Spring  went  dry.  Meantime  the  Hughes  Spring  had  been 
bought  by  Uncle  Billy  Young.  He  was  a  very  excellent 
man.  He  was  a  sheep  grower,  and  with  Presbyterian  far- 
sightedness (he  was  an  elder  in  the  Presbyterian  church)  he 
fenced  the  spring.  A  council,  not  of  war,  but  of  thirst,  was 
held.  I  was  in  the  meeting.  I  never  had  believed  and  did 
not  then  believe  in  any  sort  of  mob  violence.  Suggestions 
of  various  kinds  were  made.  Some  thought  we  ought  to  go 
at  once  and  tear  down  the  fence  nolens  volens,  but  that  was 
not  my  plan.  Instead,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  inter- 
view Uncle  Billy  and  ask  him  kindly  to  take  down  his  fence. 
Our  counsel  prevailed.  He  was  a  great-hearted  man, 
though,  of  course,  he  wanted  to  save  his  property.  He  took 
down  his  fence,  and  at  the  risk  of  losing  his  sheep,  let  the 
people  come  and  secure  water  from  the  spring. 

It  did  not  take  much  water  for  us  two,  our  cow  and  our 
little  sorrel  pony.  I  procured  a  two-gallon  jug.  I  bought  it 
innocently  when  it  was  empty,  so  do  not  get  excited  here. 
At  2 :  30  o'clock  each  morning,  I  would  ride  to  the  spring, 
being  always  careful  to  throw  my  medical  saddlebags  across 
the  saddle,  and  would  get  my  two-gallon  jug  full  of  water. 
I  strung  the  jug  to  the  horn  of  my  saddle  and  rode  home, 
afterwards  finishing  up  the  night's  sleep.  It  was  not  always 
possible  for  me  to  be  at  the  spring  at  this  particular  hour, 
because  oftentimes  I  was  out  on  medical  calls,  but  when  not 
thus  engaged,  I  made  it  a  point  to  be  at  Hughes  Spring  at 
the  hour  named  each  morning.  There  were  fewer  people 
there  at  that  hour  than  any  time  of  the  night.  There  was 
never  a  moment  at  any  time,  day  or  night,  that  there  was  not 
a  string  of  wagons,  carriages,  buggies  and  horses  lined  up 
waiting  for  their  turn  to  secure  water,  but  there  were  fewer 
at  this  particular  hour  than  at  any  other  time,  and  I  went 
then  in  order  to  save  my  time. 


256       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

If  you  have  never  tried  to  economize  on  water,  you  do 
not  know  how  the  trick  is  done.  I  do  not  now  speak  of 
economizing  in  a  social  or  political  way.  I  have  known 
many  friends  and  acquaintances  who  economized  greatly 
on  water  for  drinking  purposes.  I  refer  now  particularly 
to  the  household  economy  of  water.  This  two  gallons 
of  water  sufficed  for  all  our  uses,  and  at  the  same 
time  we  saved  enough  water  each  week  with  which  to  do 
the  week's  washing.  We  let  the  cow  and  horse  drink  the 
rinsing  water,  and  oftentimes  had  to  give  them  water  rather 
rich  in  ferri  ferro  cyanuretum.  (Kind  reader,  that's  noth- 
ing but  bluing.)  We  dosed  our  old  red  cow  on  this  bluing 
water  so  much  that  she  began  to  turn  blue,  and  I  do  not 
know  what  the  final  result  might  have  been  if  the  autumn 
rains  had  not  come  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  It  did  not 
exactly  save  her  face,  but  it  saved  her  color. 

That  autumn  no  corn  was  raised  locally.  Very  little  cot- 
ton was  raised.  That  was  our  first  introduction  to  Kansas 
corn.  It  was  shipped  in  bags,  and  we  paid  a  dollar  a  bushel 
in  coin  for  the  com  thus  shipped  to  us.  This  was  a  very 
great  hardship  upon  us  all,  and  particularly  upon  the  poor 
farmers,  but  we  had  to  take  our  medicine  and  bide  our  time 
until  the  season  should  come  again. 

In  the  meantime,  my  practice  was  growing  rapidly.  In 
times  of  adversity,  sickness  increases,  and  as  the  sickness 
increased,  my  work  grew  apace.  I  was  still  the  young  doc- 
tor, but  my  competitor,  while  he  looked  askance  upon  me 
in  a  professional  way,  had  found  it  necessary  to  recognize 
me  in  a  practical  manner.  We  had  both  joined  the  Coryell 
County  Medical  Society,  and  I  was  in  just  as  good  standing 
with  the  profession  as  he,  with  the  exception  that  I  was  not 
so  well  equipped  or  so  widely  experienced. 

During  the  autumn  of  1879,  I  went  with  Dr.  U.  M.  Gilder 
from  Gatesville  to  Stephenville  to  appear  before  the  Medi- 
cal Board  for  final  examination.    In  the  meantime,  my  be- 


THE  LIFE  AT  TURNERSVILLE  257 

loved  friend,  Dr.  R.  J.  Perry,  had  resigned  from  member- 
ship on  the  Board  and  Dr.  Gilder  had  succeeded  him.  We 
went  in  a  buggy  across  the  country.  Dr.  Gilder  was  a  splen- 
did man,  and  at  this  writing  is  still  an  honored  citizen  of 
Gatesville.  When  I  appeared  before  the  State  Board  in  its 
august  session,  they  complimented  me  highly  and  extended 
my  certificate.  On  the  Board  at  that  time  was  Dr.  Geo. 
F.  Perry,  of  Hamilton,  a  man  of  distinct  medical  and  per- 
sonal dignity.  He  lived  usefully  at  Hamilton  for  many  years, 
only  passing  on  a  year  or  so  before  this  chronicle  is  penned. 

I  hastened  back  to  the  scene  of  my  struggles  and  my 
duties.  While  the  season  had  been  a  hard  one,  I  was  en- 
abled to  collect  the  first  year  of  my  practice  $1500  either  in 
money  or  in  convertible  trade.  I  was  not  a  stickler  for  de- 
tails in  the  matter  of  collections.  I  would  take  anything  on 
a  medical  bill  from  watermelons  to  cord  wood,  and  from 
cabbages  to  calves.  I  soon  had  an  assortment  of  property, 
and  was  able,  by  my  natural  tradmg  instincts,  to  make  good 
use  of  it.  The  patrons  of  Dr.  Calaway  who  had  declined 
to  pay  him,  nearly  all  paid  me. 

There  was  a  patient  of  Dr.  Calaway  who  died,  who  gave 
me  almost  as  much  reputation  as  the  first  case.  He  was  a 
teamster,  and  when  Dr.  Calaway  had  given  him  out  to  die, 
they  sent  for  me.  When  I  reached  the  room,  I  saw 
there  was  no  chance  for  his  recovery,  but  I  rolled  up  my 
sleeves  and  went  to  work  with  him,  and  was  working  with 
him  when  he  drew  his  final  breath.  This  man  died  with  the 
most  outrageous  profanities  and  blasphemies  on  his  lips  to 
which  I  have  ever  listened.  He  was  unconscious,  but  in  his 
death  agonies  the  last  words  were  curses  against  God.  I 
went  away  from  that  room  with  a  feeling  it  took  me  weeks 
to  shake  off,  and  it  mounts  to  my  soul  again  as  these  words 
are  penned. 

During  the  winter  of  1879-80,  that  section  of  Texas  was 
visited  by  an  epidemic  of  pneumonia.     Dr.  Calaway  and  I 


258       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

were  both  seriously  taxed  to  keep  track  of  our  practice. 
There  were  ten  whole  days  and  nights  in  which  I  did  not 
even  attempt  to  undress,  and  in  which  I  did  not  have,  at 
any  time,  an  hour's  consecutive  sleep.  To  add  to  the  terrors 
of  the  situation,  the  winter  rains  had  come,  and,  like  Texas, 
the  rain  was  a  swinging  of  the  pendulum  back  from  the 
drouth  of  the  summer  previous.  It  rained  almost  inces- 
santly, and  it  was  very  difficult  for  us  to  get  to  our  patients. 
At  that  time  I  did  not  know  the  logic  of  the  splendid  work 
I  did  in  these  pneumonia  cases.  The  old-time  doctors 
thought  the  pneumonia  patient  should  be  kept  out  of 
draughts,  and  should  have  very  little  fresh  air.  I  had  been 
in  homes  where  there  was  pneumonia  where  all  the  windows 
were  down,  and  the  patient  had  neither  a  chance  for  cleanli- 
ness nor  oxygen. 

The  country  homes  within  the  radius  of  my  practice  were 
crudely  built.  Some  of  them  were  built  of  logs.  Others  of 
them  had  cracks  in  the  walls  through  which  you  could  throw 
an  average  sized  cat.  The  result  was  that  it  was  impossible 
to  keep  the  wind  from  filtering  through  these  cracks,  thus 
furnishing  the  patient  with  absolutely  pure  oxygen  which 
was  right  out  of  Nature's  ozone  laboratory. 

I  lost  but  one  patient  from  pnuemonia  that  season — a  lit- 
tle child.  The  call  came  about  midnight  and  I  was  by  the 
child's  bedside  within  an  hour.  The  family  lived  up  in  the 
little  pocket  of  the  county  to  which  I  have  hitherto  referred. 
When  I  reached  the  home,  the  baby  was  dying. 

On  my  way  back  home — I  was  at  that  time  driving  a  team 
of  horses — I  found  I  was  unable  to  "  cluck  "  to  my  horses. 
I  did  not  understand  it.  I  tried  to  speak.  I  could  not  artic- 
ulate. I  was  still  under  the  terrific  strain  to  which  I  have 
referred.  I  had  had  no  rest  at  all,  and  scarcely  time  to  eat. 
I  found  as  I  proceeded  further  that  I  was  suffering  from  a 
burning  sensation  in  the  sublingual  glands.  It  was  a  strange 
and  new  experience  to  me.     Hitherto  I  could  always  talk, 


THE  LIFE  AT  TURNERSVILLE  259 

but  there  I  was  speechless,  though  entirely  conscious.  When 
I  reached  home,  I  went  immediately  to  the  home  of  my 
father.  He  had,  in  the  meantime,  moved  to  Tumersville. 
On  examining  my  mouth  he  discovered  that  I  had  erysipelas 
of  the  sublingual  glands.  It  was  a  most  serious  situation, 
and  if  he  had  not  acted  promptly,  I  would  have  lost  my  life. 
In  a  day  or  so  the  acute  stages  of  the  malady  had  passed,  and 
I  was  about  my  work  again. 


XXXV 

A  NEW  DEPARTURE  AND  A  UNIQUE  INCIDENT 

DURING  the  early  spring  of  1880,  after  I  had  been 
in  the  practice  of  medicine  more  than  a  year,  my 
good  friend,  John  B.  Nichols,  of  Coryell  City,  sent 
for  me  to  visit  him  on  a  business  matter.  He  was  conduct- 
ing a  general  store — the  largest  enterprise  of  its  kind  in 
Coryell  County.  Nichols  &  Robertson  was  the  firm  name. 
On  reaching  Coryell  City,  Mr.  Nichols  made  me  a  novel 
and  somewhat  startling  proposal.  He  suggested  that  I  estab- 
lish a  drug,  drygoods  and  grocery  store.  He  thought  this 
would  be  a  great  adjunct  to  my  practice,  and  that  each  would 
help  the  other.  I  did  not  have  the  capital  with  which  to 
inaugurate  this  enterprise,  but  he  set  all  my  distrust  at  rest 
by  suggesting  that  I  need  pay  no  cash  whatever;  that  the 
store  itself  would  be  a  magnificent  investment,  and  one  that 
would  give  me  speedy  and  continuous  returns. 

I  accepted  the  overtures  thus  made,  and  J.  B.  CRAN- 
FILL'S  CASH  STORE  was  opened  at  Turnersville,  stocked 
with  a  well  selected  assortment  of  dry  goods,  groceries  and 
drugs  out  of  the  stock  of  Nichols  &  Robertson.  Mr.  Nich- 
ols gave  me  letters  to  wholesale  men  at  Waco,  and  this  en- 
abled me  to  supplement  not  only  the  drygoods  and  grocery 
stock,  but  the  drug  stock,  which  was  really  of  more  imme- 
diate importance  than  the  grocery  and  dry  goods  part  of  it. 

In  many  ways  this  undertaking  was  a  great  mistake.  One 
of  the  most  distressing  weaknesses  to  which  I  now  confess 
has  been  my  disposition  through  life  to  attempt  more  than 

260 


A  NEW  DEPARTURE  261 

I  could  reasonably  expect  to  accomplish.  This  was  true  of 
this  store  enterprise.  It  led  to  other  enterprises  and  business 
ventures,  of  which  more  hereafter. 

Among  my  patrons  at  that  time  was  a  man  by  the  name; 
of  Moore.  He  had  moved  into  the  Babbville  community 
the  first  part  of  1880  and  engaged  in  farming.  He  had  quite 
a  large  family,  and  I  not  only  attended  to  their  wants  when 
they  were  ill,  but  Mr.  Moore  had  a  line  of  credit  at  my  store, 
and  supported  himself  and  family  out  of  the  store  for  sev- 
eral months.  When  his  son  fell  sick  with  pneumonia,  I  gave 
him  the  best  attention  within  my  power,  with  the  result  that 
he  soon  was  well  and  about  his  accustomed  duties.  Mr. 
Moore  did  not  make  a  good  crop  that  year,  and  in  the  late 
summer  he  asked  for  the  privilege  of  going  to  Iredell  to 
begin  work  on  the  railroad  right-of-way.  The  Texas  Central 
had  been  projected  west  from  Waco,  and  the  survey  com- 
pleted on  to  Albany,  which  for  many  years  was  its  terminus. 
He  had  a  splendid  team  of  horses,  and  felt  that  if  he  could 
engage  in  work  on  the  right-of-way,  thus  utilizing  his  team 
as  well  as  the  assistance  of  his  son,  he  could  soon  pay  the 
debt  he  owed  and  be  well  on  his  feet  again. 

In  order  to  secure  me  for  the  amount  he  owed  me,  which 
was  somewhat  in  excess  of  $80,  he  gave  me  a  mortgage  on 
the  team,  and  I  allowed  him  to  go  on  his  way.  His  contract 
was  that  he  would  write  me  every  week,  and  send  remit- 
tances as  earnings  were  paid  to  him.  The  first  two  weeks 
he  wrote  the  letters,  but  sent  no  remittances.  He  then 
dropped  out  of  sight.  On  writing  to  Iredell,  I  received  no 
reply.  Late  in  August,  I  decided  to  go  to  Iredell  and  collect 
this  money  from  Mr.  Moore,  or,  on  his  failure  to  pay  me, 
to  take  over  his  team.  I  went  on  horseback.  It  took  a  full 
day  to  make  the  journey.  I  took  dinner  with  Uncle  George 
CranfiU's  widow  at  Cranfill's  Gap,  and  hurried  on  to  Iredell, 
reaching  there  about  dark.     I  found  that  while  Mr.  Moore 


262       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

and  his  family  had  been  there  and  had  worked  on  the  rail- 
road, they  had  suddenly  vanished  some  two  or  three  weeks 
before,  and  no  one  knew  their  destination.  By  sunrise  next 
morning,  I  resumed  my  journey  up  the  right-of-way  in  the 
direction  of  Albany.  I  had  no  difficulty  in  tracing  Mr. 
Moore  by  his  splendid  team.  Here  and  there  along  the  way 
he  had  worked  at  this  place  or  that,  but  when  the  grading 
had  been  finished,  had  pushed  on  further  west.  It  was  a 
laborious  day.  I  stopped  at  noon  and  grazed  my  horse  for 
an  hour  while  I  rested  under  the  shade  of  an  umbrageous 
old  oak  tree. 

I  had  not  brought  much  money  with  me.  When  I  reached 
Hico,  I  sold  my  bottle  of  quinine  to  the  druggist  for  $3.50. 
This  was  not  much  money,  but  it  was  all  I  thought  I  would 
need. 

That  night  I  found  a  stopping  place  in  a  tent  at  one  of 
the  grading  camps  above  Hico  where  the  grading  had  not 
yet  been  completed.  When  I  came  to  the  time  for  retiring 
and  began  to  undress,  I  unbuckled  my  big  Colt's  army  six- 
shooter  from  around  my  waist  and  quietly  put  it  under  my 
pillow — a  bundle  of  saddle  blankets  rolled  up  and  laid  across 
my  saddle.  I  had  as  a  companion  in  the  tent  a  stranger  who 
had  been  granted  permission  to  sleep  in  the  tent  along  with 
me.  When  I  unbuckled  my  revolver,  the  man  noticed  it, 
and  taking  his  off  at  the  same  time,  we  discussed  the  merits 
of  the  different  makes  of  pistols. 

I  told  him  I  did  not  suppose  any  officer  was  near.  He 
smiled  at  this  and  said : 

"  I  am  myself  the  sheriff  of  Hamilton  County." 

I  felt  very  queer.  I  then  went  on  to  explain  the  occasion 
of  my  presence  there,  and  the  object  of  my  journey.  He 
told  me  to  quiet  all  my  fears ;  that  while  it  was  technically 
against  the  laws  of  the  State  for  a  man  to  carry  arms,  at  the 


A  NEW  DEPARTURE  263 

same  time  there  was  a  clause  which  permitted  a  man  travel- 
ing thus  to  be  armed,  and  he  would  give  me  the  advantage 
of  that  feature  of  the  law. 

Towards  evening  of  the  following  day,  twelve  miles  west 
of  Dublin  in  Erath  County,  I  reached  the  remotest  camp  of 
the  graders  on  the  railroad  right-of-way.  This  camp  be- 
longed to  Mr.  Moore. 

If  a  meteor  had  fallen  at  his  feet,  he  would  not  have  been 
more  surprised  than  when  he  saw  me.  He  thought  he  had 
successfully  evaded  all  chance  of  detection  and  pursuit,  and 
had  made  good  his  escape  from  the  honest  debt  he  owed  me. 
I  accepted  an  invitation  from  Mr.  Moore  to  spend  the  night 
in  his  tent.  I  was  not  at  ease,  though  I  tried  very  hard  to 
conceal  the  fact  from  him  and  his.  However,  when  I  came 
to  the  point  of  retiring  for  the  night,  I  placed  my  revolver 
under  my  right  hand,  ready  for  use  at  a  moment's  notice.  I 
did  not  sleep,  but  kept  on  watch  all  night,  because  I  believed 
a  man  who  would  be  guilty  of  the  kind  of  conduct  Mr. 
Moore  had  shown,  might  be  tempted  to  commit  a  murder. 
If  I  had  been  made  way  with  in  that  far-off  place,  the  crime 
could  have  been  so  hidden  that  even  my  identity  would  per- 
haps never  have  been  known. 

We  were  up  bright  and  early  next  morning,  and  after  the 
breakfast  had  been  served,  I  told  Mr.  Moore  the  object  of 
my  visit.  He  protested  that  he  had  not  a  dollar  in  money, 
which  I  really  did  not  believe.  I  told  him  that  if  he  did  not 
have  the  money  with  which  to  discharge  the  obligation,  I 
would  take  the  horses  (they  were  well  worth  $150),  and 
would  give  him  my  note  for  the  balance.  He  asked  me  if  I 
could  pay  him  cash  on  the  spot,  but  of  course  I  told  him  no, 
because  I  had  brought  no  cash  with  me.  Very  reluctantly 
he  agreed  to  the  arrangement.  I  gave  him  my  note  for  $70, 
saddled  my  horse,  necked  the  other  two  together,  and  started 
on  the  long  homeward  trail. 


264       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

It  was  90  miles  from  the  Moore  camp  to  Turnersville,  and 
before  all  negotiations  had  been  finally  concluded,  it  was 
fully  ten  o'clock.  The  summer  sun  was  beaming  hotly  down 
upon  us.  I  feared  greatly  that  I  would  have  trouble,  but  I 
meant  to  have  trouble  or  have  what  was  justly  mine.  I  was 
prepared  to  have  it  out  with  Mr.  Moore. 

A  group  of  his  friends  among  the  graders  gathered 
around,  expecting  trouble,  and  if  trouble  had  arisen,  they 
would  have  stood  with  Mr.  Moore.  I  meant  to  do  right  first 
of  all,  and  then,  if  righteous  means  did  not  prevail,  it  was 
my  purpose  to  assert  my  rights  in  a  practical  and  aggressive 
manner.  Mr.  Moore  was  very  sullen  and  morose  when  I 
rode  back  toward  Coryell  County,  but  no  demonstration  was 
made,  and  I  was  allowed  to  go  in  peace. 

This  was  the  longest  ride  I  ever  made  in  a  single  day.  I 
hurried  on,  stopping  at  the  watering  troughs  at  Dublin  to 
water  my  stock,  where  for  the  first  time  I  met  Dr.  J.  G. 
O'Brien,  who  proved  afterwards  to  be  one  of  my  very  best 
friends.  I  hastened  on  as  rapidly  as  my  horses  would  stand 
the  journey,  making  my  way  towards  home.  I  would  ride 
one  horse  perhaps  ten  miles  at  a  time,  then  change  horses, 
leading  the  other  two,  and  thus  changing,  rested  the  ones 
not  immediately  in  commission.  At  twilight  I  was  under 
the  shadow  of  Twin  Mountains  in  Hamilton  County,  which 
were  equidistant  from  the  point  of  my  departure  and  my 
home.  It  was  forty-five  miles  from  Twin  Mountains  to  my 
Turnersville  residence.  In  the  meantime,  I  had  neither  feed 
for  my  horses  nor  money  with  which  to  buy  my  supper.  I 
"  helloed "  at  a  country  farmhouse,  told  the  benevolent 
homekeeper  of  my  plight,  frankly  confessed  my  poverty, 
and  detailed  my  situation.  He  was  a  typical  frontiersman. 
He  told  me  to  come  in  and  eat  supper  with  them,  furnished 
feed  for  my  horses,  and  was  kindness  itself. 

Supper  being  ended,  I  started  on  the  last  lap  of  that  long 
day's  ride.    At  2 :  30  o'clock  the  following  morning  I  reached 


A  NEW  DEPARTURE  265 

my  gate,  so  tired  I  could  hardly  alight  from  my  saddle.  My 
wife  had  been  greatly  distressed  on  account  of  my  long 
absence.  I  had  expected  to  go  to  Iredell  one  day  and  return 
the  next,  but  here  I  had  been  gone  three  days  and  nights. 
She  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it  all,  and  was  greatly 
rejoiced  when  she  found  that  I  had  returned  home  unharmed 
and  had  brought  back  with  me  the  fruits  of  my  labors. 


XXXVI 
MORE  ABOUT  THE  WORK  AT  TURNERSVILLE 

AMONG  my  early  patrons  won  at  Turnersville  was 
old  Uncle  Charlie  Brandon.  He  was  quite  a  char- 
acter. While  he  was  as  poor  as  a  church  mouse, 
he  was  one  of  the  most  amiable  of  men.  He  was  not  exactly 
a  type  of  Mark  Twain's  Sellers,  but  had  many  of  the  eccen- 
tricities of  that  historic  character.  He  would  wear  a  boot 
and  a  shoe,  would  go  around  the  village  with  one  suspender 
and  without  a  coat,  and  in  general  had  a  dilapidated,  run- 
down appearance.  One  morning  when  I  met  him  on  the 
street,  I  said : 

"  Good  morning,  Uncle  Charlie !    How  are  you  today  ?  " 
"  I'm  all  right.  Doc,"  he  said ;  "  Fm  about  even  with  the 
world.    I  owe  about  as  many  as  I  don't  owe." 

My  work  as  a  merchant  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
(If  by  any  means  you  have  ever  before  seen  this  expression, 
"by  leaps  and  bounds,"  please  notify  me.)  The  business 
was  necessarily  done  on  credit.  The  store  helped  my  prac- 
tice in  several  ways.  It  gave  me  standing  in  the  community, 
and  increased  my  prestige  as  a  business  man.  In  addition  to 
the  store,  other  enterprises  were  greatly  needed  in  the  little 
town.  It  had  no  shoe  shop.  I  therefore  imported  a  shoe- 
maker and  started  a  shoe  shop.  A  little  later  on,  Mr.  Keat- 
ing, manager  of  the  Turnersville  flouring  and  corn  mill  and 
gin,  having  become  deeply  involved  in  debt,  found  it  neces- 
sary to  close  out  his  interest.  After  some  negotiations,  I 
acquired  this  property  (wholly  on  credit),  and  entered  at 
once  upon  a  career  as  miller,  ginner  and  hog-raiser. 

266 


THE  WORK  AT  TURNERSVILLE  267 

The  best  way  to  make  money  out  of  a  mill  is  to  raise  hogs. 
There  is  always  an  immense  amount  of  waste  hog  feed 
around  a  mill,  and  so,  having  seen  this  point  at  once,  I 
stocked  myself  up  with  all  sorts  of  hogs  from  Jersey  to 
Chester  White  and  from  Leghorn  to  Poland  China.  I  made 
large  profits  on  my  hogs,  but  I  made  nothing  whatsoever  on 
my  mill  and  gin.  I  soon  found  myself  certainly  a  "  leading 
citizen."  I  was  the  young  and  growing  country  doctor,  the 
keeper  of  a  drug  and  general  store,  the  proprietor  of  a  shoe 
shop  and  of  the  "  Tramontane  Mills  " — the  poetic  name  con- 
ferred by  my  predecessor  upon  the  flouring  mill  which  I  had 
bought. 

In  the  meantime,  there  had  been  so  much  talk  about  my 
youth  that  I  decided  to  checkmate  the  gossip  by  associating 
myself  with  an  older  physician.  I  naturally  thought  of  my 
dear  Crawford  friend.  Dr.  T.  D.  Williams,  whereupon  I 
wrote  him,  tendering  him  a  partnership  in  my  medical  prac- 
tice. While  I  felt  that  his  coming  would  be  greatly  helpful 
to  me  as  a  doctor,  it  would  also  relieve  me  somewhat,  and 
allow  me  to  give  more  time  to  the  other  interests  that  had 
fallen  into  my  hands.    He  responded  favorably. 

Dr.  Williams  was  one  of  the  noblest  characters  I  have  ever 
known.  He  was  college  bred,  not  only  literarily,  but  pro- 
fessionally, and  was  the  best  informed  physician  that  I  knew 
in  my  earlier  years.  He  was  educated  in  chemistry,  botany, 
anatomy,  physiology,  therapy,  histology,  pathology  and,  in 
fact,  was  master  of  all  branches  of  medical  science.  He  was 
also  a  splendid  pharmacist  and  proved  himself  to  be  of  quite 
some  value  in  my  drug  work. 

Dr.  Williams  did  not  remain  my  partner  long.  He  saw 
very  quickly  that  he  was  a  misfit,  and  was  just  as  frank  to 
tell  me  so.  It  grieved  me  as  much  as  it  grieved  him.  I  loved 
him  tenderly,  and  I  cherish  his  memory  today  as  that  of  one 
of  the  dearest  friends  I  ever  knew.     I  received  from  him 


268       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

some  impressions  that  have  lingered  with  me  through  all  my 
after  years. 

Once  I  was  discussing  with  him  the  question  of  secret 
societies.  He  was  a  Royal  Arch  Mason,  a  member  of  the 
Odd  Fellows  and  of  some  of  the  other  lodges,  and  had  been 
an  honored  officer  in  several  of  them.  I  asked  whether  or 
not  I  should  make  application  to  the  Turnersville  Masonic 
Lodge  for  membership.  More  than  once  it  had  entered  my 
mind.  He  answered  that  every  good  man  was  already 
enough  of  a  Mason  without  joining  a  Masonic  Lodge,  and 
that  no  bad  man  could  ever  be  made  into  a  good  Mason,  no 
matter  how  many  times  he  took  the  obligation  of  the  lodge. 
After  his  own  fashion  he  held  the  same  view  that  had  been 
given  me  some  years  before  by  Mr.  Davis,  proprietor  of  the 
Waco  Hotel,  where  I  often  stopped  when  I  went  from  Craw- 
ford down  to  Waco  to  collect  my  monthly  salary  as  teacher 
of  the  public  school.  Mr.  Davis  said  that  if  the  common  ties 
of  humanity  were  not  strong  enough  to  bind  men  together  in 
fraternal  bonds,  no  oaths  they  could  take  would  serve  to 
create  such  bonds. 

Dr.  Williams  soon  moved  to  another  locatiton.  I  saw  lit- 
tle of  him  in  after  years.  Some  twenty  years  after  his  Tur- 
nersville residence,  I  heard  sadly  of  his  death,  and  mourned 
his  loss  as  the  going  of  a  great,  good  man  and  one  whom 
I  dearly  loved. 


XXXVII 
BREAKING  INTO  THE  NEWSPAPER  BUSINESS 

ALL  of  my  Turnersville  interests  grew  apace  until, 
when  the  year  1881  opened,  I  found  myself  not  only 
successful  as  a  doctor,  but  enjoying  a  splendid  trade 
as  a  merchant,  a  miller  and  a  shoe  shop  proprietor,  I  felt 
that  Turnersville  as  a  town  ought  to  grow  and  enlarge,  and 
so  the  thought  entered  into  my  mind  that  if  I  had  a  little 
monthly  paper  to  advertise  my  different  lines,  and  proclaim 
the  advantages  of  Turnersville  as  a  business  point,  it  would 
help  things  all  around.  The  result  was  that  February  i, 
1881,  there  appeared  the  first  issue  of  The  Turnersville 
Effort,  a  two-column  folio  monthly,  with  a  subscription  price 
of  twenty-five  cents  a  year. 

The  demand  for  the  little  sheet  was  sensational.  Sub- 
scriptions poured  in  from  all  surrounding  sections.  They 
came  from  Jonesboro,  Babbville,  and  even  from  Gatesville, 
fourteen  miles  away.  I  was  greatly  surprised  at  the  recep- 
tion accorded  this  journalistic  venture.  In  the  meantime,  I 
had  achieved  some  local  reputation  as  the  Turnersville  cor- 
respondent of  The  Gatesville  Sun,  a  county  weekly.  Coinci- 
dent with  this  literary  effort,  I  was  still  writing  weekly  let- 
ters to  The  Waco  Telephone,  and  kept  this  up  during  all  the 
time  of  my  Turnersville  residence. 

The  demand  for  the  paper  grew,  and  it  was  soon  evident 
that  it  would  have  to  be  enlarged.  When  we  came  to  the 
time  for  publishing  the  April  issue,  it  appeared  as  a  five- 
column,  eight-page  paper  at  fifty  cents  a  year. 

About  this  time,  I  found  it  necessary  to  enlarge  my  mer- 

269 


270       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

chandise  stock  and  employ  a  bookkeeper  and  assistant.  My 
friend,  P.  R.  Hobin,  who  had  been  at  work  in  the  store  of 
Uncle  Johnnie  Henderson,  was  secured  as  my  assistant  at 
a  salary  of  $50  a  month.  This  was  a  very  large  salary  for 
that  time  and  place.  I  found  Mr.  Hobin  a  very  faithful 
coadjutor.  He  was  a  man  of  keen  intellect  and  high  honor. 
He  was  as  witty  as  could  be,  and  although  a  Roman  Catholic 
in  religion,  was  not  a  narrow  man  in  his  religious  or  politi- 
cal views.  He  was  one  of  my  first  and  most  faithful  patrons 
when  I  began  my  medical  practice  at  Turnersville,  and  as 
long  as  I  continued  in  the  practice  of  medicine  there,  I  looked 
after  him  and  his  family.  He  died  only  a  year  or  so  before 
this  chronicle  was  penned,  leaving  a  modest  fortune  which 
he  accumulated  at  Turnersville  after  I  left  there. 

It  was  thus  that  our  affairs  went  on  hopefully  and  pros- 
perously until  the  spring  of  1882.  The  engineer  of  my  mill 
and  gin  was  Watt  Barrett,  a  man  of  large  heart  and  massive 
frame.  He  was  one  of  the  truest  men  with  whom  it  was 
ever  my  pleasure  to  labor.  One  early  spring  evening  of 
1882,  I  went  down  to  visit  Watt  Barrett.  He  was  living  in 
the  house  which  we  had  occupied  when  we  first  went  to 
Turnersville — the  little  two-room  home  that  cost  me  $3  a 
month.  By  this  time  the  rent  had  been  advanced,  but  Watt 
received  $12  a  week,  and  he  was  able  to  pay  the  rent,  and  at 
the  same  time  make  a  substantial  living  for  his  family. 

We  sat  on  the  front  steps  and  discussed  matters  pertinent 
to  the  mill  and  our  other  enterprises.  He  had  been  greatly 
impressed  by  the  little  monthly  paper.  Meantime  the  news 
had  gone  forth  that  the  Cotton  Belt  railroad  was  slowly  mak- 
ing its  way  from  Waco  to  Gatesville,  the  county  seat.  Up  to 
that  time,  there  had  never  been  a  line  of  railway  in  Coryell 
County,  the  nearest  railroad  station  being  Crawford  in 
McLennan  County.  The  Santa  Fe  railroad  had  been  pro- 
jected from  Galveston  north  about  1878,  and  was  completed 
up  that  far  with  passenger  trains  running  even  beyond,  as 


BREAKING  INTO  JOURNALISM  271 

early  as  the  spring  of  1882.  As  we  sat  there  discussing  all 
these  matters,  Watt  Barrett  said : 

"  Why  do  you  not  give  up  your  medical  practice,  close  out 
your  store,  your  mill  and  your  other  interests  here,  secure 
a  printing  outfit,  and  start  a  weekly  paper  at  Gatesville  ?  " 

This  had  never  before  entered  my  mind.  The  suggestion 
was  as  distinctly  epochal  in  my  own  life  as  another  incident 
of  like  kind  had  been  in  the  life  of  Mark  Twain.  When  he 
was  nineteen  years  of  age,  he  was  a  cub  printer  on  a  Hanni- 
bal, Mo.,  newspaper.  As  he  was  going  to  the  office,  a  page 
had  blown  loose  from  The  Life  of  Joan  of  Arc  and  blew  into 
his  face.  He  read  the  page,  and  it  changed  the  course  of  his 
life.  It  is  one  of  the  most  marvelous  incidents  ever  chronicled. 

In  this  smaller  sphere  and  humbler  life,  Watt  Barrett's 
suggestion  was  just  as  revolutionary.  It  was  the  seed  thought 
that  eventuated  in  a  new  career.  I  had  already  thought 
about  the  project  of  securing  type  and  a  printing  outfit,  and 
starting  a  weekly  paper  at  Tumersville,  but  was  startled  into 
the  abandonment  of  that  project  by  the  visit  of  a  remarkable 
Texas  character.  Late  one  evening  in  December,  1881,  two 
almost  frozen  horseback  travelers  drew  up  at  my  Tumers- 
ville store  and  came  in  to  thaw  out.  It  was  a  time  of  snow, 
sleet  and  ice,  with  the  mercury  hovering  around  zero.  Tur- 
nersville  boasted  no  hotel,  so  I  invited  them  to  my  home. 
Soon  we  were  all  seated  around  our  open  fireplace  and  the 
men  were  returning  to  normality.  It  was  a  happy  evening 
for  us.  Travelers  of  the  brilliancy  and  intellectual  acumen 
of  M.  B.  Davis  did  not  come  our  way  often.  He  was  en 
route  to  Fort  Worth  to  work  on  The  Democrat. 

After  supper  we  launched  out  upon  the  waves  of  literary 
discussion,  and  there  was  scarcely  anything  left  untouched 
in  the  range  of  familiar  literature.  Meantime  I  had  told  Mr. 
Davis  that  I  was  at  that  time  conducting  a  monthly  journal 
at  Tumersville,  and  advised  him  of  the  plan  on  which  this 
paper  was  published.    I  stated  that  I  had  thought  I  would 


272       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

secure  a  printing  outfit,  press,  type,  etc.,  and  enlarge  the 
paper  to  a  weekly.  He  turned  upon  me  with  a  suddenness 
that  was  startling,  and  exclaimed : 

"  Avoid  it,  sir,  as  you  would  the  grip  of  the  devil !  " 

This,  in  the  language  of  the  litterateur,  gave  me  pause. 
(To  the  Printer:     Spell  this  word  p-a-u-s-e,  not  p-a-w-s.) 

I  was  deeply  impressed  by  this  stranger's  injunction,  and 
upon  maturer  reflection  abandoned  the  plan  entirely.  Next 
morning  our  stranger  friends  went  on,  but  I  had  not  seen  the 
last  of  M.  B.  Davis.  In  later  years,  he  was  for  a  long  time 
my  neighbor  in  Waco,  at  which  point  he  did  service  on  sev- 
eral of  the  newspapers,  and  was  for  many  years  correspond- 
ent for  The  Dallas  News.  He  has  left  the  walks  of  men  to 
try  the  realities  of  another  world.  He  was  an  exceedingly 
bright  man,  versatile  as  a  reporter,  virile  and  luminous  as  a 
writer,  and  in  personal  appearance  very  much  resembled  the 
late  Mark  Twain. 

Acting  on  Watt  Barrett's  suggestion,  plans  were  inaugu- 
rated for  beginning  the  Gatesville  weekly.  In  May,  1882,  I 
journeyed  to  Houston  to  attend  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
Texas  Press  Association.  I  had  never  met  with  the  Texas 
editors,  and  this  trip  was  a  great  event.  On  that  visit,  I  met 
W.  M.  Bamberg,  a  dealer  in  presses,  type  and  printers'  sup- 
plies. He  had  a  second-hand  outfit,  consisting  of  a  Wash- 
ington hand  press,  body  and  job  type,  and  other  material. 
A  little  later  in  the  month,  I  gave  the  order  for  this  material, 
and  had  it  shipped  to  Gatesville,  via  Crawford.  In  the  mean- 
time, I  busied  myself  with  the  steps  necessary  to  closing  out 
my  Turnersville  affairs.  I  sold  my  flouring  mill,  closed  up 
the  shoe  shop,  and  began  to  reduce  my  stock  of  drygoods  and 
groceries.  I  did  not  stand  upon  the  order  of  the  proceeding 
after  my  mind  had  been  fully  made  up. 

I  have  not  told  heretofore  that  my  father  had  become  in- 
terested with  me  in  the  store.  He  always  had  a  notion  that 
he  would  succeed  as  a  merchant,  and  when  I  began  the  Tur- 


BREAKING  INTO  JOURNALISM  273 

nersville  store,  he  very  soon  became  so  much  interested  that 
he  proposed  to  buy  a  half  interest  in  the  business.  I  gladly 
sold  him  the  half  interest,  but  he  was  not  financially  inter- 
ested in  any  of  my  other  lines  of  business. 

He  was  mistaken  in  his  mercantile  ability,  just  as  I  was 
in  mine.  He  was  not  born  to  be  a  merchant.  No  more  was 
I.  While  as  a  merchant  I  succeeded  in  many  ways,  the  traf- 
fic was  too  small  for  me.  To  sell  a  yard  of  calico  or  a  ten- 
cent  piece  of  soap  never  did  appeal  to  me.  I  never  liked  it, 
and  so,  while  we  were  not  able  to  entirely  close  out  the 
stock  of  goods  while  still  in  Tumersville,  it  was  soon  closed 
out,  after  I  reached  Gatesville,  which  was  in  December  fol- 
lowing. 

My  nearest  neighbor  at  Turnersville  was  Rev.  P.  S.  G. 
Watson,  author  of  Watson's  Prophetic  Interpretations.  He 
was  then  an  old  man,  and  a  ripe  and  noble  Christian.  He 
and  his  dear  old  wife  lived  in  the  same  yard  with  us,  and  it 
was  a  joy  to  have  him  for  a  neighbor.  His  book  was  then 
in  manuscript.  At  his  request,  I  read  the  manuscript,  and 
while  it  was  mystical  and  non-understandable  to  me  in  most 
of  its  discussions,  I  read  it  for  the  sake  of  my  love  for  the 
dear  old  man.  He  had  one  peculiarity.  He  could  not  on 
any  account  endure  the  scent  of  tobacco  or  tobacco  smoke. 
If  he  inhaled  tobacco  smoke,  it  almost  threw  him  into  con- 
vulsions. For  that  reason  he  was  counted  as  a  visionary 
and  a  crank  by  the  common  herd,  but  it  was  a  congenital 
affliction,  which  in  its  various  and  sundry  manifestations  is 
true  of  most  of  us  who  abominate  this  narcotic  poison.  His, 
however,  was  more  than  an  aversion.  It  was  a  physical  in- 
firmity that  was  irresistible. 

Across  the  street  from  me  in  Turnersville  there  lived  my 
boyhood  friend,  Jim  Bellamy,  he  of  the  "  I-think-a-horse — " 
speech  of  the  old  time  Bastrop  County  debating  society. 
Meantime  he  had  married  a  second  cousin  of  mine,  a  Mrs. 
Waller,  and  was  succeeding  well  in  the  Turnersville  country. 


274       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

He  had  developed  into  a  magnificent  mechanic  and  machin- 
ist, and  was  looked  up  to  on  all  sides  by  the  people  of  that 
section  of  the  State. 

Another  neighbor  was  John  Mitchell  and  his  estimable 
wife.  They  were  among  our  best  friends,  and  their  son,  Her- 
bert Mitchell,  now  a  man  in  the  full  flood  tide  of  strong  ma- 
turity, is  still  a  friend  whom  we  delight  to  thus  esteem.  He 
was  then  a  boy  of  twelve,  and  was  more  than  happy  when 
occasion  offered  to  assist  me  at  the  store.  He  was  kind- 
hearted,  genial,  loyal  as  a  friend,  bright  and  industrious.  He 
has  made  an  excellent  man.  His  dear  mother  passed  on  to 
be  with  God  many  years  ago,  but  she  left  her  impress  upon 
the  life  of  this  strong  and  manly  son. 

It  was  at  about  this  time  that  I  rode  on  a  railroad  train 
for  the  first  time.  The  incessant  rains  had  rendered  all  the 
roads  to  Waco  impassable.  I  therefore  made  my  way  on 
horseback  to  Crawford,  took  the  Santa  Fe  train  there,  went 
around  by  way  of  Morgan,  and  down  the  Texas  Central  to 
Waco.  I  never  shall  forget  the  sensations  I  felt  the  first  time 
I  was  really  in  a  railroad  passenger  coach. 


XXXVIII 

ODDS  AND  ENDS  OF  THE  LIFE  AT 
TURNERSVILLE 

JULY  4,  1879,  was  a  high  day  at  Turnersville.  I  was 
the  orator  of  the  occasion.  There  were  thousands  of 
people  present.  They  came  from  all  over  Coryell 
County.  Many  notables  came  from  Gatesville.  It  was  an 
event  that  challenged  the  interest  and  attention  of  the  Tur- 
nersville people  to  a  high  degree.  One  of  the  peculiarities 
of  the  Fourth  of  July  celebration  was  that  it  rained  that  day. 
It  was  the  last  rain  until  after  the  great  drouth.  It  was  not 
a  heavy  rain.  It  would  not  have  rained  at  all  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  celebration.  It  is  one  of  the  strangest  perversi- 
ties of  nature  that  it  rains  on  picnic  and  Fourth  of  July  days. 
This  great  gala  occasion  was  not  an  exception. 

I  read  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  based  my  ad- 
dress upon  this  patriotic  American  classic.  The  speech  was 
not  much,  but  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  fine.  It 
always  has  been.  It  still  is.  It  is  like  the  preacher's  text. 
It  never  grows  old.  Those  who  were  kind  enough  to  listen 
to  my  remarks  complimented  me  highly  upon  them,  but  they 
were  not  at  all  satisfying  to  the  speaker.  Among  the  friends 
who  came  from  Gatesville  was  Speight  W.  Oakes,  familiarly 
known  as  "  Chunk  "  Oakes.  He  was  one  of  the  editors  of 
The  Gatesville  Sun.  He  and  his  brother  owned  the  publi- 
cation. Another  of  the  friends  who  came  was  W.  B.  Fakes, 
who  lived  for  years  at  Gatesville  and  was  a  lawyer  of  no 
mean  note. 

An  incident  that  occurred  in  1880,  lingers  in  my  memory. 

275 


276       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

My  friend  and  fellow  laborer,  Bob  Hobin,  journeyed  with 
me  on  a  certain  summer  day  to  Waco.  We  went  down  to  lay 
in  our  fall  stock  of  goods.  I  drove  my  own  horse  to  my 
buggy,  and  we  had  planned  to  make  the  trip  of  fifty  miles 
within  a  day.  We  started  early,  and  reached  Crawford  at 
dinner  time,  where  we  dined  with  my  old-time  friend,  Uriah 
Tadlock.  It  was  the  time  of  harvest.  The  Tadlocks  had 
just  cut  their  oats.  One  of  the  boys  took  out  my  horse  and 
fed  her  on  the  new  oats.  The  sequel  was  that  after  we  had 
driven  to  within  ten  miles  of  Waco,  she  took  violently  sick 
and  was  dead  in  an  hour.  There  we  were  with  the  buggy, 
our  little  baggage,  including  my  medical  saddlebags,  and  our 
other  trappings.  We  had  to  get  into  Waco  that  night.  It 
was  then  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  so  we  started  out 
to  make  the  ten-mile  walk  to  Waco. 

At  the  time  this  chronicle  is  penned,  I  am  quite  a  pedes- 
trian, but  I  was  not  in  those  days.  Hobin  was  a  good  walker. 
He  was  much  older  than  I,  and  had  walked  around  America 
quite  a  good  deal  before  he  settled  down  at  Turnersville. 
We  fared  bravely  forth,  leaving  our  belongings  with  the  far- 
mer, and  had  walked  about  six  miles  when  the  writer  hereof 
began  to  be  somewhat  fagged.  There  was  a  briliant  summer 
moon.  There  came  along  galloping  and  whistling  a  care-free 
young  equestrian — a  typical  Texas  boy.  I  hailed  him.  I 
recited  our  misfortune  and  told  him  we  were  bound  to  get 
into  Waco  that  night.  I  added  that  I  was  exceedingly  tired 
and  asked  if  he,  out  of  the  kindness  of  his  heart,  would  walk 
a  while  and  let  me  ride  his  horse.  The  nerve  of  it  was  admir- 
able. Hobin  afterward  said  so.  Much  to  our  astonishment 
and  to  my  gratification,  the  young  man  alighted,  and  I 
mounted  his  steed.  He  did  not  see  the  humor  of  it  at  first, 
but  as  we  journeyed  on,  it  dawned  upon  him.  He  laughed 
heartily,  and  said : 

"  Here  are  you  two  men,  entire  strangers  to  me — burglars 
and  robbers  for  aught  I  know — and  one  of  you  has  talked 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  277 

me  into  surrendering  to  him  my  horse  and  walking  here 
beside  the  other.  How  do  I  know  what  you  are  going  to 
do  to  me  ?" 

It  was  thus  that  we  walked  and  joked  along,  but  in  the 
meantime,  I  was  achieving  the  object  of  my  quest — I  was 
riding  and  resting.  After  we  had  gone  perhaps  two  miles,  I 
suggested  that  it  would  perhaps  be  best  for  him  to  now  take 
his  horse  and  ride  on  into  town.  We  were  then  scarcely  a 
mile  from  Waco.  You  wonder  why  I  did  not  let  Hobin  ride 
the  horse  for  one  of  these  miles.  I  know  it  has  been  on  your 
mind  ever  since  I  began  to  tell  this  incident.  The  fact  is  that 
Hobin  did  not  need  to  ride  the  horse.  He  was  not  in  any 
sense  tired,  but  being  an  Irishman  and  full  of  humor,  he  en- 
joyed the  unique  occasion  A-ery  keenly. 

I  did  not  move  my  family  to  Gatesville  at  once,  but  The 
Gatesville  Advance  was  issued  as  a  weekly  publication  the 
first  week  in  June,  1882.  Meantime,  the  printing  outfit  had 
been  transported  by  wagon  to  Gatesville,  and  opened  up  in 
due  form.  One  of  the  first  printers  we  secured  was  Peter 
Bartlett  Lee,  then  the  greatest  tramp  printer  in  the  world.  He 
knew  all  of  the  circumstances  of  our  removal  to  Gatesville, 
and  it  was  he  who  went  to  the  case  and  set  up  in  type  without 
copy  the  leading  editorial  announcing  the  enlargement  of  The 
Turnersville  Effort  and  its  expansion  into  The  Gatesville 
Advance.  The  editorial  was  headed,  "  We  Advance,"  and 
was  not  only  a  production  of  exceeding  interest,  but  was  well 
worthy  of  the  enterprise  and  of  the  occasion. 

During  the  summer  of  1882,  while  I  was  living  at  Tur- 
nersville and  inaugurating  the  paper  enterprise  at  Gatesville, 
a  great  revival  of  religion  was  held  at  Turnersville  by  the 
pastor  of  the  Baptist  Church,  Rev.  George  W.  Clark.  I  was 
still  nominally  identified  with  the  Hardshell  Baptists,  al- 
though I  had  not  affiliated  with  them  in  any  active  manner 
for  almost  three  years.  There  was  no  Hardshell  Baptist 
church  at  Turnersville,  the  nearest  being  over  at  Tilden 


278       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

school  house,  where  I  had  joined.  I  had  my  church  letter 
in  my  trunk.  When  I  moved  to  the  Crawford  country  I 
transferred  my  church  membership  from  the  Tilden  church 
to  the  Hardshell  Baptist  church  at  Osage,  about  eight  miles 
from  Crawford.  I  had  since  taken  my  letter  out  of  the 
Osage  church  and  had  it  at  home. 

When  this  great  revival  came,  I  was  one  of  the  constant 
attendants.  I  have  never  witnessed  a  more  genuine,  heart- 
searching,  far-reaching  revival  of  religion  than  was  this. 
Hearts  hitherto  unused  to  even  the  thought  of  God  were 
touched,  and  many  were  saved.  Among  the  number  con- 
verted, I  recall  Mr.  Woody,  an  old  citizen  of  the  Turners- 
ville  community.  He  must  have  been  seventy-five  years  of 
age.  While  always  a  good  man,  and  always  believing  in  high 
citizenship  and  good  morals,  he  had  never  made  any  profes- 
sion of  religion.  I  was  present  the  night  of  his  conversion. 
When  he  had  found  peace  with  his  Saviour,  he  went  forward 
to  unite  with  the  church.  The  pastor  asked  him  to  relate 
his  experience.    He  halted  and  hesitated,  and  finally  said : 

"  I  cannot  describe  my  feelings.  I  only  know  that  I  have 
never  felt  this  way  before,  and  that  I  am  now  at  peace  with 
God  and  all  mankind." 

The  occasion  was  very  impressive. 

It  was  during  this  meeting  that  my  own  heart  was  revived. 
I  presented  my  letter  to  the  Turnersville  Missionary  Baptist 
church,  and  was  received  upon  it  for  membership  in  that 
fraternity.  It  was  a  happy  hour  when  I  thus  re-aligned  my- 
self actively  in  Christian  work.  It  had  been  now  almost  six 
years  since  I  had  become  a  Christian,  and  I  had  done  very 
little  in  all  that  time  in  the  interest  of  the  Master.  Now,  with 
a  quickened  hope  in  Christ,  and  a  new  resolve  for  activity  in 
the  work  of  the  Redeemer,  I  went  more  happily  about  my 
tasks  than  had  been  my  wont  in  many  a  day. 


XXXIX 

THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  SERPENT 

IN  the  work  of  The  Gatesville  Advance,  I  had  a  partner. 
In  many  respects  he  was  a  most  excellent  man,  but  he 
could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  drink.  I  did  not,  how- 
ever, know  of  this  weakness.  I  had  known  him  in  his  con- 
nection with  Waco  journalism,  and  esteemed  him,  not  only  as 
a  man  of  splendid  newspaper  ability,  but  as  a  printer  of  the 
very  highest  type.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Typographical 
Union,  had  held  places  on  the  very  best  dailies  of  the  State, 
and  was  in  every  sense  just  the  kind  of  man  I  needed  in  the 
work.  I  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  practical  side  of 
newspaper  work.  I  did  not  know  a  shooting  stick  from  a 
shooting  star,  nor  a  side  stick  from  a  side  saddle.  It  thus 
became  very  necessary  for  me  to  have  some  one  associated 
with  me  who  would  be  an  adept  in  this  feature  of  our  work. 
My  partner  admirably  filled  this  need,  and  was  exceedingly 
agreeable  and  industrious.  His  only  fault  was  drinking,  and 
that  was  difficult  for  him  to  resist  in  this  new,  bustling  rail- 
road town.  While  the  actual  rails  had  not  yet  been  laid  into 
Gatesville,  everything  was  on  tiptoe  and  aquiver  with  excite- 
ment on  account  of  the  incoming  era  of  prosperity  and  ex- 
pansion. 

Meantime,  The  Gatesville  Sun  had  changed  hands.  My  old 
friends,  C.  E.  and  S.  W.  Oakes  had  sold  the  paper  to  W.  B. 
Scott,  a  very  capable  newspaper  man,  and  in  all  essential  re- 
spects a  man  of  splendid  ability  and  excellent  character.  I 
spent  some  of  my  time  at  Gatesville,  looking  after  the  paper 
interest,  and  some  of  it  at  Turnersville  looking  after  inter- 

279 


280       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

ests  there.  Gravitating  from  one  interest  to  the  other,  I  tried 
to  keep  all  of  the  departments  up  to  the  highest  mark  of 
efficiency,  but  one  week  when  I  was  in  Turnersville,  my 
partner,  evidently  under  the  influence  of  liquor,  published  a 
very  virulent  and  unwarranted  attack  upon  W.  B.  Scott,  the 
editor  of  the  rival  paper.  I  knew  nothing  whatsoever  of  this 
article  until  it  was  in  print  and  had  reached  Turnersville  in 
the  mail.  I  hastened  to  Gatesville  at  once,  because  I  knew 
that  a  deliverance  of  that  sort  meant  trouble.  I  was  familiar 
with  the  temper  of  the  people,  whereas  my  partner,  who  had 
come  up  from  Waco,  and  a  little  before  from  further  East, 
was  not  yet  trained  to  the  ways  of  western  men. 

When  I  reached  Gatesville,  I  found  that  my  partner  had 
gone  to  Waco.  I  was  therefore  left  alone  to  see  if  matters 
could  be  adjusted.  One  of  my  printers  told  me  that  Mr. 
Scott  had  already  in  type  in  his  office  for  publication  in  his 
paper  a  very  vitriolic  personal  assault  upon  me.  That  com- 
plicated the  situation,  but  I  went  forward  in  the  pursuit  of 
my  plan  just  as  though  this  article  were  not  in  type.  I  went 
promptly  to  Mr.  Scott's  office  and  sought  an  interview  with 
him. 

The  old-time  habit  of  carrying  arms  was  still  in  vogue  in 
the  Coryell  County  section.  Practically  every  man  carried 
his  pistol  in  his  hip  pocket.  There  were  exceptions,  but  they 
were  rare.  I  was  thus  armed  when  I  went  to  call  upon  Mr. 
Scott,  and  I  knew,  when  he  came  to  the  front  and  talked  to 
me  in  the  little  hall  of  his  upstairs  office,  that  he  was  also 
armed.  I  went  into  a  lengthy  explanation  of  the  situation.  I 
told  him  my  partner  had  written  the  article,  of  which  he  had 
just  reason  to  complain ;  that  I  had  nothing  whatsoever  to  do 
with  it;  that  I  regretted  it;  that  it  would  be  retracted,  and 
the  amende  honorable  promptly  made.  I  added  that  I  under- 
stood he  had  in  type  an  attack  upon  me,  but  trusted  he  would 
not  print  this  attack,  for  the  reasons  already  assigned. 

He  was  obdurate.    He  was  angry.    He  felt  that  he  had 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  SERPENT  281 

been  outraged,  and  I  agreed  with  him,  but  the  fault  was 
not  mine.    Finally  he  straightened  to  his  full  height  and  said : 

"  Dr.  CranfiU,  your  money  bought  the  press  and  type  with 
which  The  Gatesville  Advance  is  printed.  You  are  the  re- 
sponsible party.  This  partner  of  yours  has  not  put  a  dollar 
into  the  enterprise,  and  I  must  hold  you  responsible  for  what 
appears  in  the  paper." 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Scott,"  I  rejoined,  "  That  is  all  true,  but  the 
fact  remains  as  I  have  already  stated.  I  did  not  write  the 
attack  upon  you.  I  do  not  approve  of  it.  I  greatly  depre- 
cate it,  and  simply  wish  to  have  the  opportunity  of  correct- 
ing it" 

We  kept  on  talking,  one  word  bringing  on  another.  Fin- 
ally, after  having  exhausted  all  the  patience  I  could  com- 
mand, I  said  plainly  to  Mr.  Scott : 

"  Now,  Scott,  if  after  all  I  have  said  to  you  in  this  mat- 
ter, you  go  on  and  print  your  attack  upon  me,  it  will  prove 
that  you  are  not  a  gentleman."    Quick  as  a  flash,  he  said : 

"  You  are  a liar." 

Then  the  fun  began.  I  struck  him  and  knocked  him  half 
way  down.  As  he  straightened,  he  reached  for  his  gun,  but 
I  had  my  revolver  out  and  drawn,  with  my  finger  on  the 
trigger,  before  he  could  get  his  out.  Mine  was  a  double- 
acting  pistol.  He  would  have  been  a  dead  man  in  five  sec- 
onds, but  he  threw  up  his  hands  and  said : 

"  I  am  unarmed !  " 

That  saved  his  life.  I  knew  he  was  armed,  but  this  prompt 
act  of  his  saved  me  from  the  horrible  deed  that  I  was  on 
the  eve  of  committing. 

I  put  my  revolver  back  into  my  pocket,  and  as  he  turned 
to  retreat  into  his  office,  I  walked  down  stairs.  When  I 
reached  the  bottom  of  the  stairs,  I  was  the  worst  scared  man 
that  had  ever  stood  on  Coryell  County  soil.  The  terrible 
realization  of  what  had  almost  happened  frightened  me  al- 
most to  death.    I  went  down  into  the  Leon  River  bottom  to 


282       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

think  the  matter  over.  I  had  no  unkind  feeling  for  Mr.  Scott, 
and  would  not  have  hurt  him  for  the  world.  He  had  really 
given  me  no  offense,  and  while  the  circumstances  occurred 
just  as  I  have  related  them,  I  bore  him  no  malice  and  wished 
in  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that  the  whole  terribly  awkward 
situation  had  never  been  precipitated. 

I  meditated  further.  There  I  was,  almost  a  stranger  in 
Gatesville,  without  a  friend  upon  whom  I  could  rely,  and 
there  he  was  in  the  town  of  his  birth,  where  everybody  knew 
him,  and  where  all  the  citizens  were  his  friends.  I  felt  per- 
fectly sure  that  before  the  matter  ended,  one  or  both  of  us 
would  have  to  die.  After  thinking  the  matter  through,  I 
started  back  to  my  office  to  face  whatever  crisis  might  arise. 
In  the  meantime,  twilight  had  come,  and  as  I  approached 
my  office,  I  could  scarcely  tell  who  the  gentleman  was  that 
awaited  me  in  my  office  door.  I  was  ready  at  a  moment's 
signal  for  self  defense,  but  on  reaching  the  office,  found  that 
the  man  who  was  waiting  was  none  other  than  Mr.  McMul- 
len,  an  old-time  printer  who  was  working  on  The  Gatesville 
Sun  under  Mr.  Scott.  Reaching  the  office,  Mr.  McMullen 
handed  me  a  note  from  Mr.  Scott. 

I  felt  then  that  a  duel  would  have  to  be  fought  that  night. 
I  was  perfectly  sure  Mr.  Scott  had  sent  a  challenge.  The 
plan  would  be,  perhaps,  to  go  down  to  the  banks  of  the  Leon 
river,  step  off  ten  or  fifteen  paces,  as  the  case  might  be, 
square  ourselves  and  shoot  it  out.  That  would  be  one  way 
of  settling  it,  and  there  was  no  doubt  that  McMullen  bore 
me  a  proposal  thus  to  adjust  our  difficulty. 

On  opening  the  missive,  however,  my  delight  knew  no 
bounds.  It  was  an  apology !  After  thinking  the  matter  over 
— Mr.  Scott  had  been  thinking  while  I  had  been  thinking — he 
saw  the  error  of  his  way.  He  realized  that  he  had  been  hasty 
and  unreasonable,  and  the  note  so  stated.  He  asked  me  to 
come  to  his  office  at  once  and  let  us  shake  hands,  make  peace 
and  be  friends  for  the  balance  of  our  lives. 


THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  SERPENT  283 

I  have  received  a  great  many  letters  in  my  time — I  suppose 
a  thousand  bushel  basketfuls.  I  have  been  a  letter  writer 
and  a  letter  receiver  all  my  life  in  the  most  majestic  fashion, 
but  I  state  it  here  as  a  fact  that  I  never  received  any  letter 
from  any  source  whatsoever,  (except  from  the  woman  that 
I  love  more  than  all  women  on  the  earth,)  that  so  charmed 
me  as  this  note  from  Mr.  Scott. 

I  took  my  printer,  W.  D.  Shaw,  of  whom  more  hereafter, 
and  marching  over  with  old  man  McMullen,  we  went  to  Mr. 
Scott's  office.  He  was  in  the  best  of  humor,  we  shook  hands, 
we  made  mutual  explanations,  asked  each  other's  pardon, 
and  from  that  day  until  this  have  been  the  best  of  friends. 

To  anticipate  our  story  just  a  little,  I  met  Scott  next  in 
Monterey,  Mexico.  Soon  after  the  incident  to  which  I  have 
referred,  he  sold  out  his  interest  in  The  Gatesville  Sun,  and 
left  Gatesville  to  return  no  more.  He  went  to  Mexico,  pre- 
pared himself  for  the  work  of  dentistry  and  when  the  Texas 
Press  Association  gave  its  excursion  into  Monterey  the  fol- 
lowing May,  Scott  was  one  of  the  first  men  to  meet  me  at 
the  train,  and  he  gave  me  a  gorgeous  reception.  He  had  al- 
most mastered  the  Spanish  language,  and  while  I  had  a  talk- 
ing knowledge  of  Spanish,  his  proficiency  was  so  much  great- 
er than  mine  that  his  kindness  to  me  was  of  the  greatest 
value.  I  was  glad  to  see  him,  to  grasp  his  hand  again,  and 
look  into  his  noble,  friendly  face. 

This  was  my  first  practical  experience  with  the  worm  of 
the  still  in  its  deadly  diabolism.  There  I  was,  for  no  fault 
of  my  own,  a  victim  of  the  whiskey  my  partner  had  drunk. 
I  have  heard  again  and  oft  that  if  you  "  let  whiskey  alone 
it  will  let  you  alone."  There  never  was  a  greater  fallacy. 
I  had  let  whiskey  alone,  but  had  almost  stained  my  hands  in 
the  blood  of  one  of  the  best  citizens  of  Coryell  County  on  ac- 
count of  the  whiskey  another  man  had  drunk. 

This  was  not  to  be  my  last  struggle  with  whiskey  or  the 
whiskey  business.    At  that  time,  I  had  not  really  awoke  to 


284       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

the  deadly  doings  of  the  liquor  traffic.  Reared  in  Hardshell 
Baptist  atmosphere,  I  had  been  trained  by  my  associates  to 
the  belief  that  whiskey,  temperately  used,  was  not  danger- 
ous or  deleterious.  My  sweet  mother  had  taught  me  from 
my  childhood  that  there  was  nothing  good  in  whiskey  from 
any  standpoint  whatsoever,  but  the  Hardshell  Baptist  broth- 
erhood did  not  share  her  views.  It  was  common  for  their 
ministers  to  take  their  drinks.  I  have  rarely  known  a  Hard- 
shell preacher  who  was  not  an  anti-prohibitionist. 

A  story  (for  the  truthfulness  of  which  I  do  not  vouch) 
was  told  of  the  Hardshell  Baptists,  that  when  the  old  Provi- 
dence association  met  with  the  church  near  Luling,  where 
Uncle  Jim  Baker  was  pastor,  that,  following  the  convoca- 
tion, the  young  men  picked  up  two  wagon  loads  of  empty 
whiskey  bottles.  Uncle  Jim  Baker,  however,  vociferously 
and  emphatically  averred  that  it  was  a  lie.  He  said  there 
was  only  one  wagon  load  of  bottles  picked  up ! 

When  we  first  began  the  publication  of  The  Gatesville 
Advance,  we  admitted  whiskey  advertising.  It  seemed  all 
right,  but  at  that  time  I  had  not  fully  analyzed  the  situation. 
It  dawned  upon  me  later,  more  of  which  hereafter.  My 
partner  was  such  a  splendid  patron  of  the  Gatesville  saloons 
that  we  were  almost  overrun  with  saloon  advertising.  His 
saloon  bill  was  about  $ioo  a  month,  and  it  was  charged 
against  his  interest  in  the  paper  and  credited  on  the  adver- 
tising account  of  the  various  saloons  where  he  did  his 
drinking. 


XL 
THE  LIFE  AT  GATESVILLE 

THE  first  thing  I  determined  upon,  after  having  become 
duly  installed  as  editor  of  The  Gatesville  Advance, 
was  to  learn  the  printing  business.  I  have  made  it  a 
rule  of  my  life  to  respect  the  motto  of  Benjamin  Franklin, 
who  said : 

"  He  that  by  the  plow  would  thrive, 
Himself  must  either  hold  or  drive." 

I  have  never  been  in  any  line  of  business  that  I  did  not 
master.  When  I  was  a  cowboy,  I  "  busted  "  bronchos  and 
played  the  game  according  to  the  rules.  When  I  was  a  coun- 
try school  teacher,  I  learned  all  of  the  details  of  that  line 
of  endeavor.  When  I  was  a  country  doctor,  I  sought  to 
perform  the  tasks  to  which  I  had  set  my  hand  with  intelli- 
gence and  capability,  and  now  that  I  had  once  stained  my 
hands  in  printer's  ink  (a  deadly  thing  to  do)  I  found  it  abso- 
lutely essential  to  learn  the  art  of  printing.  Our  type  faces 
were  long  primer,  now  called  ten  point,  and  brevier,  now 
called  eight  point.  I  not  only  familiarized  myself  with  the 
art  of  setting  type,  but  I  became  an  expert  roller  and  press- 
man. There  were  perilous  times  in  the  Gatesville  printing 
office.  It  was  a  magnificent  summer  office,  but  it  was  en- 
tirely too  well  ventilated  for  even  a  Texas  winter.  The 
house  belonged  to  Dr.  J.  B.  Wills,  the  Universalist  preacher, 
who  had  also  been  in  his  time  a  doctor.  It  was  constructed 
of  rawhide  lumber,  and  the  merciless  summer  sun  had 
warped  and  twisted  the  planks  until  there  were  vast  aper- 

285 


286       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

tures  in  the  walls.  It  was  impossible  to  warm  this  room 
when  winter  came.  The  only  way  we  could  run  off  an  edi- 
tion of  The  Advance  was  to  secure  a  big  pot,  build  a  char- 
coal fire  in  it,  and  set  the  fire  under  the  bed  of  the  press. 
In  that  way  we  were  enabled  to  keep  the  ink  sufficiently 
warm  to  roll  on  to  the  forms,  and  thus  cause  the  type  to 
make  an  impression  on  the  white  sheet  of  paper. 

Many  were  the  nights  that  we  worked  literally  all  night 
long.  It  was  imperative  to  get  the  papers  in  the  mail  by 
Saturday  morning  at  sunrise,  in  order  that  they  might  be 
distributed  and  sent  out  to  the  country  postoffices.  I  would 
carry  the  sacks  of  mail  on  my  back  to  the  postoffice.  It  had 
two  advantages:  One  was  it  saved  twenty-five  cents;  the 
other  was  that  it  delivered  the  papers  at  the  postoffice  with- 
out delay. 

At  that  time  Gatesville  and  all  West  Texas  was  in  a  rather 
unsettled  condition.  We  were  in  the  throes  of  passing  from 
the  frontier  regime  to  a  civilized  state,  and  had  not  yet  quite 
shed  the  old  order,  nor  had  we  yet  taken  on  the  new.  Gates- 
ville had  ten  saloons  in  a  population  of  1500.  That  was  one 
to  every  150  of  the  population.  There  were  frequent  assassi- 
nations in  the  county,  and  a  number  of  white  men  were  sum- 
marily mobbed.  It  was  not  a  difficult  task  to  identify  the 
liquor  business  with  these  murders.  They  went  hand  in 
hand.  And  then  the  liquor  business  played  its  part  when 
these  criminals  were  brought  to  book  and  tried  for  their 
crimes.  There  were  perhaps  never  truer  officers  than  we 
had  then.  Our  district  judge  was  the  lamented  T.  L.  Nugent, 
and  our  district  attorney  was  C.  K.  Bell,  who  recently  died 
in  Fort  Worth.  Jim  Lanham  was  sheriff.  They  were  good 
men  and  true,  but  they  were  hampered  by  the  frontier  sys- 
tem. Juries  were  not  secured  in  the  court  house.  They 
were  selected  the  night  before  in  a  saloon — not  all  of  the 
jurors,  mind  you,  but  just  enough  of  them.  This  reminds 
me  of  a  compliment,  if  it  can  be  called  a  compliment,  that 


J.  B.  Cranfill,,  When  Editor     of  The  Gatesville  Advance. 


THE  LIFE  AT  GATESVILLE  287 

Judge  George  Clark,  of  Waco,  once  paid  to  an  old-time 
lawyer  friend  of  mine.  Speaking  of  this  lawyer  Judge  Clark 
said,  "  He  is  the  best  outside  lawyer  I  ever  knew/' 

Up  to  that  time,  I  had  not  awoke  to  the  iniquities  of  the 
liquor  traffic.  We  still  ran  liquor  advertising,  and  while  it 
was  valuable  chiefly  in  order  that  my  partner  might  pay  his 
liquor  bills,  at  the  same  time  it  ingratiated  us  with  the  liquor 
element,  and  indirectly  with  the  mob  element.  But  this 
friendliness  could  not  continue.  In  the  early  spring  of  1883 
Gatesville  was  visited  by  two  very  disastrous  fires,  both 
originating  in  saloons.  The  result  of  this  was  that  I  edi- 
torially denounced  the  firebugs  who  had  been  willing  to 
jeopardize  the  interests  of  an  entire  community  in  order 
that  they  might  burn  their  whiskey  shops  and  collect  the 
insurance.  This  infuriatd  the  liquor  men.  Very  soon  I 
was  taken  to  task  by  one  of  them,  who  told  me  that  in  con- 
sequence of  the  editorial  I  had  published,  he  would  never 
advertise  any  more  in  my  paper.    I  replied : 

"  No,  Jim,  you  never  will,  nor  will  any  other  liquor  man. 
From  this  time  forward  you  liquor  dealers  cannot  buy  space 
in  The  Advance  for  love  nor  money." 

I  went  to  the  office,  went  to  my  case  and  set  up  an  edi- 
torial with  my  own  hands  without  copy,  headed  "  No  More 
Saloon  Advertisements."  It  created  a  profound  sensation 
as  far  as  the  influence  of  The  Gatesville  Advance  extended. 
Not  only  that,  but  it  was  copied  extensively  in  temperance 
and  prohibition  papers  throughout  the  country,  and  I  found 
that  I  had  achieved  a  national  reputation.  The  step  that  I 
had  taken  had  promised  to  me  a  very  heavy  loss,  not  only 
of  immediate  financial  returns,  but  of  the  sympathy  of  an 
element  which  hitherto  had  been  my  friends.  However,  new 
subscribers  began  to  pour  in  from  various  parts  of  the  State, 
and  even  from  other  States,  and  what  I  had  thought  would 
be  a  great  loss  proved  in  many  ways  to  be  a  great  gain, 
which  reminds  me  of  what  Sam  Jones  once  said :     "  God 


288       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

will  feed  an  honest  man  if  He  has  to  put  the  angels  on  half 
rations." 

But  this  did  not  end  my  troubles.  They  had  only  begun. 
The  liquor  element  set  its  face  against  me  like  flint,  and  so 
did  the  mob  element.  About  that  time  three  men  were  mur- 
dered at  Pecan  Grove,  some  twelve  miles  below  Gatesville. 
I  denounced  the  murderers  in  emphatic  terms,  with  the  re- 
sult that  the  mob  element  were  further  infuriated.  So  great 
was  their  indignation  that  a  leader  of  the  "  boys,"  so-called, 
came  up  to  Gatesville  and  sought  a  personal  interview  with 
me.  It  was  the  time  of  the  full  moon.  He  found  me  in 
John  Hammack's  saloon,  where  I  had  gone  to  report  the 
attempted  assassination  of  old  man  Lingo.  I  had  found 
Lingo  stretched  out  on  the  saloon  floor  with  what  seemed 
at  that  time  a  fatal  cut  in  his  head.  He,  however,  after- 
wards recovered.  While  we  were  gathered  around  his  pros- 
trate form,  Uncle  Joe  Henderson  pulled  me  by  the  coat 
sleeve  and  said, 

"  Doc,  I  would  like  to  see  you  privately  a  minute." 

We  walked  out  to  the  court  house  steps.  The  town  was 
built  around  the  court  house  square.  It  was  a  beautiful, 
bright  spring  night.  We  sat  on  the  court  house  steps,  and 
he  began  his  conversation  as  follows : 

"  Doc,  the  boys  all  like  you,  but  lately  your  denunciations 
of  them  and  their  friends  are  such  that  I  fear  we  older  heads 
will  not  be  able  to  restrain  them.  You  cut  down  on  them 
awfully  hard  in  connection  with  the  Pecan  Grove  killing, 
and  they  asked  me  to  come  up  here  and  see  you  and  ask  you 
if  you  wouldn't  let  up." 

I  turned  full  upon  Uncle  Joe,  with  whom  I  had  always 
been  quite  friendly,  and  said : 

"  Uncle  Joe,  you  go  back  and  tell  the  boys  that  the  only 
way  to  get  me  to  let  up  is  for  them  to  let  up.  I  will  denounce 
every  mob  murder  that  occurs  in  this  county,  and  not  only 
that,  I  will  publish  the  names  of  the  murderers  if  I  can  ascer- 


Mrs.  J.  B.  (Ollie  Allen)  Cranfill. 


THE  LIFE  AT  GATESVILLE  289 

tain  who  they  are.  You  go  back  and  tell  the  boys  that  when 
they  come  up  to  Gatesville  to  mob  me,  as  you  indicate,  I  will 
be  at  home  down  on  Leon  Street,  and  will  get  more  of  them 
than  they  do  of  me." 

I  thus  put  on  a  very  bold  front,  but  I  none  the  less  real- 
ized my  danger.  I  was  dealing  with  a  desperate  situation, 
and  confronting  the  most  dangerous  men  ever  schooled  in 
the  West.  I  did  not  count  my  life  of  any  great  value  in 
those  days,  because  after  Uncle  Joe's  visit,  and  even  before, 
I  had  realized  that  I  might  be  shot  down  any  moment. 

Under  a  full  sense  of  the  situation,  I  had  gone  to  the 
hardware  firm  of  Fellrath  &  Sanders  and  ordered  the  latest 
model  Colt  revolver,  45  calibre.  I  had  ordered  it  made  at  the 
factory  with  a  short  barrel,  so  it  would  fit  my  hip  pocket.  I 
had  studied  and  practiced  surgery,  and  was  also  well  versed 
in  all  of  the  traditions  of  the  frontier.  I  knew  that  one 
might  fatally  wound  an  antagonist  with  a  small  calibre  bul- 
let and  yet  be  killed  by  him,  but  I  knew  equally  well  that  if 
you  were  able  to  land  a  45  calibre  bullet  in  a  man's  anatomy 
he  would  be  too  sick  to  continue  the  struggle. 

Mind  you,  I  never  did  want  to  hurt  any  of  God's  crea- 
tures. I  shrank  from  inflicting  pain,  yet  at  the  same  time  I 
was  set  to  do  my  duty,  as  God  gave  me  light  and  strength 
to  see  my  duty,  and  I  did  not  mean  for  any  desperado  to 
shoot  me  down  like  a  dog  if  I  could  have  the  opportunity  of 
seeing  him  first  and  defending  my  life. 

I  was  scared,  beyond  a  doubt,  but  not  enough  to  deter 
me  from  standing  four  square  to  every  breeze  that  blew. 
Every  one  of  the  old  citizens  of  Gatesville  who  are  left  liv- 
ing, will  testify  to  every  word  I  am  here  writing  down. 


XLI 
MORE  ABOUT  THE  LIFE  AT  GATESVILLE 

ABOUT  this  time  an  amusing  incident  occurred  which 
served  to  relieve  the  tension  and  tedium  of  our  edi- 
torial life.  At  three  o'clock  one  bitter  cold  morn- 
ing, in  the  winter  of  1883,  there  was  a  knock  at  my  door. 
The  night  was  as  crisp  and  clear  as  it  had  been  on  December 
8,  1878,  when  John  Stull  was  killed.  The  air  had  the  same 
tang  and  tingle  in  it.  We  were  always  prepared  for  the 
mob.  Living  with  me  at  that  time  were  two  printers — W.  D. 
Shaw  and  Tom  Kinsey.  These  boys  were  as  brave  as  lions, 
and  as  true  as  steel.  Every  night  when  we  retired,  each 
one  of  us  left  his  revolver  out  on  a  little  table  in  easy  reach 
of  his  right  hand,  so  that  we  would  be  ready  for  any  emer- 
gency that  might  arise. 

On  this  crisp  winter  morning,  when  the  knock  was  heard 
at  my  door,  all  of  us  were  up  in  a  second,  because  we  were 
sure  the  mob  had  come.  My  wife,  just  as  brave  as  any 
woman  ever  was,  jumped  out  of  bed  as  I  did.  I  told  her 
to  get  behind  the  door,  turn  the  bolt,  and  open  it  three  or 
four  inches  so  that  I  might  look  out  and  see  who  it  was. 
Meanwhile  I  cocked  my  pistol  and  the  other  boys  cocked 
theirs,  taking  strategic  positions  by  my  side.  The  early 
morning  visitor  evidently  heard  the  clicks  of  the  guns.  He 
was  quick  to  yell  out : 

"  Doc,  don't  you  know  who  this  is  ?  It  is  Layton  Mc- 
Donald ! "     . 

I  knew  the  voice  and  at  once  said :  "  Layton,  what  on 
earth  are  you  doing  here  at  this  hour  of  the  night  ?  " 

290 


MORE  ABOUT  GATESVILLE  291 

He  responded :  "  I  have  stolen  John  Pancake's  girl  and 
have  come  to  your  house  to  get  married." 

The  door  was  opened  and  the  young  couple,  warm  with 
love,  but  almost  frozen  otherwise,  were  ushered  into  the 
front  room.  All  of  us  dressed  as  quickly  as  possible,  struck 
up  a  fire,  I  went  by  the  home  of  Dr.  R.  J.  Perry,  my  dear 
old  doctor  Methodist  preacher  friend,  woke  him  up,  told  him 
to  dress,  and  then  hurried  on  and  got  the  marriage  license. 
By  four  o'clock  I  had  the  preacher  there,  and  he  married 
the  runaway  couple  in  short  and  handsome  order. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Henry  Lee  ran  for  city  mar- 
shal. He  was  the  most  dangerous  man  then  in  that  part  of 
Western  Texas.  Bill  Babb  had  left  behind  him  no  real  suc- 
cessor. But  Lee  was  with  us,  and  was  even  more  to  be 
dreaded  than  Babb,  because  he  was  devoid  of  all  the  higher 
and  nobler  principles,  some  of  which  Babb  held.  He  kept 
the  saloon  at  the  corner  of  Main  Street  and  the  square.  He 
was  an  avowed  enemy  to  all  righteousness  and  to  all  orderly 
municipal  government.  The  man  that  ran  against  him  was 
John  W.  Boyd,  a  member  of  the  Baptist  church,  and  while 
not  aggressive,  he  was  a  man  of  splendid  character,  and  was 
capable  in  every  way  of  making  us  a  good  city  marshal. 

The  campaign  was  short,  but  hot.  Every  available  vote, 
so  far  as  we  could  at  that  time  discover,  was  brought  to  the 
polls,  with  the  result  that  when  the  ballots  were  counted 
Boyd  had  polled  99  votes  and  Henry  Lee  98.  That  night 
all  of  us  expected  trouble.  Every  man  of  us  was  armed  and 
ready  for  the  fray. 

The  next  day,  Henry  Lee,  through  his  attorney,  filed  a 
contest  of  the  election  on  the  ground  that  one  of  the  men 
who  had  voted  against  him  lived  outside  the  corporation. 
This  was  found  to  be  true,  with  the  result  that  a  new  elec- 
tion was  ordered  to  be  held  within  ten  days,  and  thus  the 
fun  (if  such  tragedy  can  ever  be  called  fun)  was  to  be  had 
all  over  again.   If  the  first  election  was  hot,  the  second  was 


292       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

seven  times  hotter  than  was  its  wont.  Every  law-abiding 
citizen  in  Gatesville  bestirred  himself,  went  out  into  the 
byways  and  hedges  and  worked  like  a  Trojan,  but  you  must 
not  doubt  that  the  liquor  element  worked  also.  They  are 
always  on  the  job.  You  never  can  ambush  a  liquorite,  no 
matter  where  he  is.  The  friends  of  the  saloon  have  this 
universal  quality  of  aggressive  and  intelligent  activity  every 
time  their  business  is  in  any  wise  menaced. 

None  of  us  who  passed  through  that  ten  days'  campaign 
will  ever  forget  the  incidents  that  made  it  memorable.  Time 
after  time  we  were  right  on  the  eve  of  desperate  encounters, 
but  by  some  good  stroke  of  fortune  the  crisis  would  pass 
and  open  armed  hostility  would  be  delayed. 

When  election  day  came,  every  man,  woman  and  child  in 
town  was  on  the  qui  vive.  We  adopted  tactics  on  that  elec- 
tion day  that  had  been  absent  ten  days  before.  Carriages 
were  employed,  and  old,  decrepit,  crippled  men  from  both 
sides  were  brought  to  the  polls.  When  the  vote  was  finally 
counted  it  was  found  Boyd  had  polled  107  votes  and  Lee 
106. 

I  had  very  little  hope  of  living  through  that  second  elec- 
tion night,  because  I  had  been  a  very  conspicuous  figure  in 
both  campaigns.  One  of  my  truest  yoke  fellows  was  Rab 
Dickey.  When  the  result  was  announced,  there  was  wild 
applause  on  the  part  of  the  law-abiding  element,  in  which 
Dickey  and  I  joined.  Soon  the  crowd  dispersed,  and  Dickey 
and  I  started  up  Rat  Row  in  the  direction  of  our  homes.  As 
we  passed  by  a  little  alleyway  on  Rat  Row,  we  heard  the 
click  of  revolvers.  We  didn't  remain  in  that  spot  at  all. 
Neither  of  us  was  made  of  India  rubber,  but  we  literally 
bounced  out  of  the  range  of  those  familiar,  but  deadly 
sounds. 

After  we  had  stepped  out  of  the  range  of  the  dark  alley- 
way, we  paused  and  wheeled  around  to  face  the  would-be 
assassins.    Not  a  sound  was  heard.    No  one  stirred.    You 


MORE  ABOUT  GATESVILLE  293 

may  wonder,  gentle  reader,  why  we  did  not  go  back  that 
way.  We  did  not  want  to!  It  was  getting  late,  and  we 
knew  that  supper  was  ready. 

John  W.  Boyd  was  promptly  installed  as  marshal,  and  the 
liquor  business  and  the  "toughs"  of  Gatesville  never  after- 
wards quite  had  the  strength  and  prestige  they  had  hitherto 
enjoyed. 

At  about  this  time  I  narrowly  escaped  assassination.  The 
facts  were  recited  to  me  the  following  day  by  Shaw.  He 
went  on  one  of  his  periodic  sprees  and  wound  up  finally  at 
Henry  Lee's  saloon.  He  was  so  drunk  he  could  not  get  out 
of  the  saloon,  so  in  order  to  dispose  of  him  for  the  night, 
they  kicked  him  under  one  of  the  billiard  tables.  He  had  a 
peculiar  cast  of  mind,  drunk  or  sober,  the  drunk  pecu- 
liarity being  that,  while  he  would  lose  his  power  of  locomo- 
tion, he  retained  to  a  remarkable  degree  his  consciousness 
and  memory  of  every  passing  event.  That  night,  after  the 
game  of  billiards  was  about  concluded,  and  after  the  strag- 
glers had  wandered  out  of  the  saloon,  Shaw  overheard  a 
conspiracy  between  Henry  Lee  and  one  of  his  associates  to 
murder  me. 

I  worked  much  at  night.  Sometimes  this  work  would 
be  done  at  the  office  and  sometimes  at  home.  If  typesetting 
was  to  be  done,  or  if  the  paper  was  to  be  put  to  press  (and 
this  happened  twice  a  week,  because  we  could  only  print  one 
side  at  a  time)  we  worked  at  the  office  at  night.  On  the 
other  evenings  in  the  week,  if  we  were  not  far  behind  with 
our  typesetting,  I  would  carry  a  bundle  of  exchanges  home 
with  me,  pull  the  window  shades  down  tightly,  as  I  always 
•did  in  those  days,  summer  and  winter,  and  do  my  newspaper 
reading  and  editorial  work  after  my  wife  and  babies  were 
asleep.  Far,  far  into  the  morning  I  would  read,  clip,  write, 
paste,  and  browse  through  the  fields  of  literature,  current, 
ancient  and  modern. 

On  this  particular  night,  however,  I  was  working  in  my 


294       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

office,  as  Henry  Lee  and  his  co-conspirators  ascertained  be- 
fore the  plan  to  murder  me  was  consummated.  My  office 
was  on  Leon  Street,  but  it  was  my  custom  every  night  to 
go  by  the  meat  market  and  get  a  steak  for  breakfast.  Fisher 
Wells  was  the  market  man.  He  kept  his  market  open  until 
late  at  night.  When  we  were  merely  setting  type,  as  was 
the  case  on  this  particular  night,  we  went  home  rather  early, 
say  not  later  than  eleven  o'clock.  After  passing  the  market, 
I  would  go  down  Main  Street,  until  I  came  to  Carter's  lum- 
ber yard,  through  which  there  was  a  passage  way.  It  was 
neither  a  street  nor  an  alley,  but  it  was  a  passage  way  that 
ran  from  street  to  street,  through  which  pedestrians  and 
wagons  might  pass.  Shaw  heard  the  conspirators  agree  to 
waylay  me  in  Carter's  lumber  yard  and  assassinate  me  as  I 
went  home  that  night.  There  my  good  friend  lay,  utterly 
powerless  to  give  an  alarm,  and  yet  in  mortal  terror  of  the 
frightful  event  soon  to  be  enacted  in  the  death  of  his  best 
friend. 

But  I  did  not  go  by  the  market,  nor  through  Carter's  lum- 
ber yard  that  night !  One  of  those  strange,  mysterious,  in- 
explicable changes  came.  I  went  down  Leon  Street,  neglect- 
ing the  market  entirely,  and  thus  escaping  instant  death  at 
the  hands  of  my  enemy. 

I  believe  that  it  was  God's  providence  that  thus  preserved 
my  life. 

I  have  tested  it  on  many  occasions,  and  up  to  the  hour  of 
writing  this  chronicle  I  have  believed  in  God's  over-ruling 
and  guiding  hand  in  the  lives  of  His  creatures.  Only  this 
very  afternoon,  as  I  was  coming  out  of  the  building  where 
my  office  is,  the  elevator  fell  to  the  ground,  but  it  did  not 
start  to  fall  until  we  were  within  three  feet  of  the  ground. 
I  came  down  from  the  seventh  floor  and  it  might  just  as 
easily  have  started  at  the  seventh  floor  and  fallen  eighty  feet, 
as  to  have  started  three  feet  from  the  bottom.  But  that  is 
God's  way.    He  keeps  us  and  preserves  us. 


MORE  ABOUT  GATESVILLE  295 

Next  morning  Shaw  told  me  all  about  the  incidents  of 
the  night  before,  and  this  made  me  doubly  careful.  I  never 
did  go  through  Carter's  lumber  yard  at  night  after  that.  I 
always  went  down  the  other  street.  This  was  not  because  I 
was  afraid.    I  found  it  was  nearer  down  Leon  Street ! 

During  those  days,  I  never  left  my  wife  and  babies  any 
morning  that  I  did  not  expect  to  be  brought  home  on  a  lit- 
ter. As  I  kissed  them  goodbye  at  the  cottage  gate  and 
wended  my  way  to  my  office,  I  felt  in  my  soul  that  I  might 
never  see  them  again  in  this  life.  They  were  perilous  times 
— so  perilous  that  threats  were  made  on  every  hand.  One 
of  these  threats  was  made  by  a  man  out  in  the  country.  He 
had  taken  deadly  offense  at  a  paragraph  in  my  paper,  and 
had  written  me  that  he  would  shoot  me  on  sight.  He  added 
that  he  would  come  to  town,  backed  up  by  his  friends,  and 
that  I  might  be  ready. 

If  you  have  never  confronted  a  situation  of  such  gravity, 
you  do  not  know  exactly  how  a  man  feels  when  he  lives, 
moves,  breathes,  eats  and  sleeps  in  such  an  atmosphere. 
Moreover,  there  are  very  few  men  upon  whom  you  can  call 
in  emergencies  like  this  to  stand  by  you  out  in  the  open,  let 
the  consequences  be  what  they  may.  But  I  had  one  such 
friend  in  Gatesville  in  the  person  of  my  printer,  W.  D. 
Shaw.  Tom  Kinsey,  the  printer  lad,  was  equally  brave,  but 
he  was  still  a  boy.  Shaw  was  a  man  grown,  a  native  of 
North  Carolina,  a  graduate  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  a 
man  of  magnificent  mental  equipment,  and  yet  one  who  had 
gone  to  the  devil  through  drink.  In  his  sober  moments,  he 
was  one  of  the  brightest  men  it  has  ever  been  my  pleasure 
to  know,  but  he  debauched  himself  with  whiskey  so  often 
that  his  intellect  was  greatly  blunted  by  these  periodic  in- 
dulgencies. 

The  difficulty  I  confronted  was  in  protecting  myself  from 
all  sides  at  the  same  time.  When  threatened  with  an  in- 
vasion of  a  crowd  of  men,  all  bent  upon  my  destruction,  I 


296       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

felt  that  I  would  be  at  a  great  disadvantage.  Shaw  told  me 
that  he  would  go  with  me  on  the  street  and  look  one  way- 
while  I  looked  the  other.  The  following  Saturday  I  was 
notified  that  this  man  and  his  friends  had  come  to  town  and 
were  making  all  kinds  of  threats.  I  never  did  relish  the 
idea  of  dreading  impending  danger.  If  there  is  trouble  to 
confront,  I  want  to  go  and  look  it  in  the  face,  take  its. 
dimensions,  reckon  with  it  and  get  through  with  the  job. 
Acting  upon  this  principle,  Shaw  and  I  put  our  guns  in  our 
pockets  and  fared  forth.  Mind  you,  we  were  not  hunting 
this  man  and  his  friends,  but  we  went  out  on  the  street  as 
a  simple  notification  to  them  that  we  were  not  going  to 
hunt  our  holes  when  the  like  of  them  came  to  town.  We 
saw  them  up  on  the  corner  of  the  square.  They  were  a 
little  to  one  side  and  almost  on  the  way  to  the  postoffice. 
We  walked  quietly  without  noise  or  ostentation  on  towards 
the  postoffice,  where  really  we  needed  to  transact  a  little 
item  of  business.  The  braggadocio  desperado  looked  at  us 
as  we  passed,  but  did  not  move.  If  he  had  moved  a  muscle, 
the  fun  would  have  begun.  He  contemplated  us,  and  so  did 
his  three  friends,  but  not  one  of  them,  so  far  as  we  could 
tell,  even  batted  an  eye.  We  went  on  our  way  to  the  post- 
office,  transacted  our  business,  and  came  on  back,  conscious 
that  our  danger  from  that  source  was  at  an  end.  The  best 
possible  cure  for  desperadoism  of  this  kind  is  a  steady  nerve 
and  a  brave  front.  We  had  these  two  attributes  in  plenty, 
and  it  was  thus  that  the  bloodless  battle  ended,  and  never 
again  did  we  hear  of  any  threats  from  this  Osage  man  or 
his  confreres. 

But  there  was  constant  and  real  danger  from  the  Coryell 
County  mob.  One  of  the  ringleaders  in  all  of  the  devil- 
ment in  Coryell  County  was  Henry  Lee.  I  always  dreaded 
him.  I  felt  that  at  one  time  or  another  I  would  have  to  meet 
him  in  mortal  combat.  Upon  one  occasion,  when  I  was  the 
speaker  of  the  day  at  a  picnic  up  toward  Hamilton,  Lee  was 


MORE  ABOUT  GATESVILLE  297 

present.  I  made  as  strong  a  temperance  address  as  I  could 
put  into  words.  He  heard  it  all,  and  as  I  was  concluding  my 
address,  Pleas  Post,  now  an  honored  official  of  Coryell 
County,  and  who  was  at  that  time  a  printer  in  my  office, 
whispered  to  me  that  we  were  to  be  assaulted  by  Henry  Lee 
and  his  crowd.  Pleas  Post  was  a  man  of  nerve,  and  was 
my  friend.  A  man  by  the  name  of  Ross  had  also  gone  up 
to  this  picnic  with  me,  and  he  was  one  of  the  substantial 
citizens  of  Gates ville. 

However,  the  contemplated  attack  was  not  made.  Our 
prohibition  meeting  reached  a  very  happy  ending  without 
any  hostile  move  being  made  by  the  liquor  forces.  As  Ross 
and  I  went  on  back  toward  Gatesville,  we  observed  Henry 
Lee  on  the  farther  side  of  his  horse  waiting  down  in  the 
bed  of  a  creek.  This  seemed  to  us  a  very  significant  atti- 
tude, but  I  thought  that  he  would  scarcely  make  an  attack 
upon  two  of  us  while  he  was  alone.  I  do  not  to  this  day 
understand  the  meaning  of  this  attitude  of  his.  I  was  on 
speaking  terms  with  Lee.  Although  in  our  secret  hearts 
we  were  deadly  enemies,  we  had  never  ceased  to  speak  to 
each  other  as  we  passed  on  the  street.  For  some  reason  he 
did  not  like  Mr.  Ross.  Not  that  they  had  at  that  time  ever 
had  any  trouble,  but  Ross  was  a  member  of  the  Methodist 
church,  was  a  friend  of  law  and  order,  and  he  and  Lee  were 
traditional  enemies.  We  went  on  our  way  towards  home, 
and  thus  the  exercises  of  the  day  ended,  but  the  incident 
was  not  forgotten. 

During  this  period,  I  became  the  county  lecturer  for  the 
United  Friends  of  Temperance.  This  official  position  made 
it  incumbent  upon  me  to  organize  temperance  societies 
throughout  the  county.  I  organized  twelve  temperance 
councils — all  of  them  live,  aggressive  and  full  of  energy. 
We  had  a  strong  county  organization,  and  from  time  to 
time  held  county-wide  meetings  at  Gatesville.  All  this  time 
The  Gatesville  Advance  every  week  was  battling  for  tem- 


298       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

perance  and  prohibition.  The  liquor  men  were  not  yet 
greatly  alarmed,  but  they  might  as  well  have  been,  because 
the  organization  of  these  twelve  temperance  councils  in 
Coryell  County  sounded  the  death  knell  of  the  Coryell 
County  saloons.  The  culmination  was  not  reached  for 
many  years.  I  was  living  at  Waco  when  the  Gatesville 
saloons  were  finally  banished,  but  the  initial  stages  of  that 
happy  consummation  were  begun  when  these  temperance 
councils  sprang  into  being. 

In  1884  the  temperance  element  in  the  county  dominated 
the  County  Democratic  Convention.  As  editor  of  the  paper, 
I  enjoyed  quite  a  degree  of  prestige,  and  I  had  increased  my 
clientele  in  a  temperance  way  by  making  the  acquaintance  in 
their  own  respective  neighborhoods,  of  the  leading  temper- 
ance workers  of  the  county.  The  result  was  that  I  was 
chosen  as  a  delegate  to  the  State  Democratic  Convention, 
which  met  during  the  summer  of  1884  at  Houston.  I  was 
ardent  in  my  advocacy  of  the  temperance  reform.  I  be- 
lieved that  the  State  Democracy  should  put  itself  on  record 
as  against  the  liquor  business  in  all  its  forms.  Acting  upon 
that  conviction,  I  introduced  into  the  convention  a  prohibi- 
tion resolution.  However,  before  introducing  this  resolu- 
tion I  had  submitted  the  question  to  a  number  of  the  lead- 
ing temperance  men  of  the  State,  some  of  whom  I  had 
learned  to  know.  The  first  man  I  approached  was  a  rather 
distinguished  lawyer,  who  had  come  down  to  represent  an- 
other county.  He  was  a  much  older  man  than  I,  and  had  a 
wider  acquaintance.  I  sought  to  impress  him  with  the  great 
good  that  would  ensue  from  his  introduction  of  the  resolu- 
tion. He  made  the  traditional  political  excuses.  I  then 
sought  out  a  Sunday  School  superintendent  whom  I  knew, 
and  laid  the  case  before  him,  with  the  same  result.  Like 
the  priest  and  the  Levite,  each  passed  by  on  the  other  side. 
I  found  that  if  a  temperance  resolution  was  to  be  intro- 


MORE  ABOUT  GATESVILLE  299 

duced,  I  would  have  to  do  it,  and,  at  a  proper  time  in  the 
proceedings,  I  read  the  resolution. 

It  produced  a  sensation.  Such  a  thing  had  never  hap- 
pened before  in  a  Texas  Democratic  Convention.  A  Ger- 
man delegate  from  San  Antonio  was  the  first  to  secure  the 
floor.    He  said: 

"  Meester  Shairman !  I  moof  e  dat  de  resolootion  which 
de  shintleman  eentrodoos  be  laid  upon  de  dable,  and  de 
shintleman  wheech  eentrodoos  de  resolootion  be  laid  oonder 
de  dable ! " 

His  motion  was  greeted  with  wild  applause.  He  had 
struck  a  keynote.  The  great  Texas  Democracy  had  redis- 
covered itself.  It  was  against  prohibition.  There  was  a 
second  to  the  German's  motion,  but  in  the  hullabaloo  that 
followed,  the  "  ayes  "  and  "  nos  "  were  drowned,  and  no  one 
has  ever  known  just  how  the  vote  stood.  The  resolution 
certainly  was  laid  upon  the  table,  but  the  mover  of  the  reso- 
lution was  not  laid  under  the  table.  That  happened  to  a 
large  number  of  the  delegates  later  in  the  sessions,  after 
they  had  made  the  rounds  of  the  Houston  saloons.  I  saw 
quite  a  number  of  them  hors  du  combat  through  their  indul- 
gence in  the  Democratic  beverage. 

Things  up  Gatesville  way  were  reaching  a  culmination. 
Henry  Lee  was  becoming  a  little  more  aggressive  in  his  ad- 
vocacy of  the  liquor  business,  a  little  more  dare-devil  all  the 
time,  a  little  less  regardful  of  the  feelings  of  others.  Upon 
a  day  during  the  summer  of  1884  he  was  in  a  room  in  the 
Commercial  Hotel.  The  same  man,  Ross,  of  whom  I  have 
already  spoken,  went  into  the  hotel  to  collect  a  bill  from  a 
woman  who  was  a  friend  to  Henry  Lee.  When  Ross  went 
in  to  collect  his  furniture  bill  (he  was  a  furniture  dealer), 
Henry  Lee,  who  was  in  the  woman's  room,  arose,  cursed 
him  and  ordered  him  out.  Ross  retreated  backward,  realiz- 
ing that  he  was  in  danger  of  assassination.  As  he  backed 
down  the  hall,  Lee  followed  him,  and  feeling  safe  in  bull- 


300       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

dozing  Ross,  whom  he  believed  to  be  a  coward,  he  started 
to  grab  Ross  by  the  collar,  and  at  the  same  time  made  a 
move  to  draw  his  own  revolver  from  his  right  hip  pocket. 
Ross  was  quicker  than  Lee.  He  reached  4iis  gun  first  and 
shot  Lee  through  the  heart.  As  he  fell,  he  shot  him  again 
through  the  right  leg.  The  only  words  that  escaped  from 
Lee's  lips  were  "  Oh,  Lord ! "  as  he  fell.  It  was  perhaps 
the  first  time  he  had  used  the  Lord's  name,  except  in  pro- 
fanity, in  many  years. 

The  news  of  the  killing  spread  in  the  little  town  like  wild- 
fire. My  partner  in  the  publication  of  The  Advance  had 
changed.  At  that  time  the  man  was  John  Post,  one  of  the 
truest,  noblest  and  most  honorable  men  it  has  ever  been  my 
pleasure  to  know.  I  had  heard  the  two  shots,  but  did  not 
know  what  the  firing  was  about.  Mr.  Post  ran  up  the  stairs, 
announced  that  Henry  Lee  had  been  killed  at  the  Commer- 
cial Hotel,  and  ran  down  again.  I  rushed  to  the  Commercial 
Hotel,  and  was  one  of  the  first  that  reached  the  scene.  A 
dozen  others  had  preceded  me.  Being  the  newspaper  man 
of  the  town,  the  good  friends  were  quick  to  make  way  for 
me  to  get  into  the  hall  where  the  dead  man  lay.  Meantime, 
Ross  had  gone  down  the  street,  with  his  smoking  pistol  in 
his  hand,  toward  the  court  house,  that  he  might  surrender 
to  the  sheriff. 

Lee  lay  on  his  back  with  his  right  hand  under  him  still 
more  I  knew  that  we  never  could  have  genuine  prohibition 
gripping  the  handle  of  his  revolver.  Death  always  solemn- 
izes me,  and  while  I  rejoiced  in  my  heart  that  this  desperado 
had  been  killed,  I  felt  sad,  after  all,  to  see  him  lying  there 
still  and  ghastly  in  the  embrace  of  death.  One  of  the  men 
who  had  preceded  me  in  viewing  the  dead  man  was  a  Meth- 
odist preacher.  Rev.  J.  W.  Shook.  He  and  I  were  good 
friends.  He  waited  for  me  to  come  out  of  the  hotel.  As  I 
emerged  from  the  hall  where  the  dead  man  lay.  Shook 
looked  up  into  my  face.     I  expected  him  to  say,  "Great 


MORE  ABOUT  GATESVILLE  301 

pity,  wasn't  it  ? "  or  some  such  remark  as  that,  but  he 
didn't.  He  raised  his  hat  a  little,  and  looking  up  from  un- 
der the  brim,  he  said,  "  Fine  shot,  wasn't  it  ?  " 

Ross  was  speedily  tried.  The  grand  jury  indicted  him  so 
that  he  might  be  acquitted.  The  jury  adjudged  him  not 
guilty  without  leaving  the  box.  Thus  ended  the  career  of 
one  of  the  most  desperate  men  it  has  ever  been  mine  to 
know. 

The  following  week  one  of  my  subscribers.  Uncle  Tom 
Winters,  was  in  town.  He  was  County  Commissioner  of 
Precinct  No.  8,  was  an  old  citizen,  and  much  loved  and  re- 
spected.   When  I  came  upon  Uncle  Tom,  I  asked : 

"  Uncle  Tom,  what  do  the  people  out  in  the  western  part 
of  the  county  think  of  the  killing  of  Henry  Lee  ?  " 

He  turned  to  me,  squared  himself,  and  in  his  old-time, 
frontier  vernacular,  he  made  answer : 

"  Well,  Doc,  I've  been  livin'  in  Coryell  County  now  nigh 
onto  twenty-five  year,  and  as  you  know,  I  have  knowed  of  a 
heap  of  killin's,  but  I  have  never  knowed  one  that  give  sich 
general  satisfaction." 

That  was  the  universal  verdict.  Yet,  Lee  had  his  follow- 
ing, and  these  were  greatly  stirred  up  over  his  death.  Ross, 
after  his  acquittal,  found  the  danger  to  his  life  too  great 
in  Gatesville,  so  he  disposed  of  his  business  and  went  back 
to  Arkansas,  where  he  took  a  position  as  deputy  sheriff. 
One  night,  while  on  his  way  home,  some  assassin  fired  from 
ambush  and  shot  him  dead.  The  assassin  was  a  Coryell 
County  friend  of  Lee.  I  think  I  know  who  killed  him.  He 
lived  in  the  Eagle  Springs  community  near  my  old-time 
counsellor.  Uncle  Joe  Henderson.  He  was  a  bosom  friend 
of  Henry  Lee  and  followed  Ross  to  Arkansas,  awaited  a 
favorable  opportunity,  and  sent  a  bullet  crashing  through 


302       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

his  brain.  I  could  give  his  name  here,  but  I  do  not  think  it 
would  be  safe. 

I  am  not  afraid. 

I  am  prudent. 

He  was  a  young  man  at  that  time,  and  it  has  been  but  a 
little  over  thirty  years  since  these  tragedies  occurred.  I  am 
still  living  in  Texas  and  it  is  not  an  awfully  long  way  from 
Coryell  County  to  Dallas. 

Sahe,  v.? 


XLII 
AN  ENLARGING  FIELD 

DURING  the  very  year  1884  in  which  I  attended  the 
Democratic  State  Convention  as  a  delegate  and  in- 
troduced the  temperance  resolution,  St.  John  and 
Daniel,  nominated  for  president  and  vice-president,  by  the 
National  Prohibition  party,  polled  154,000  votes.  That  was 
the  year  of  the  .first  election  of  Grover  Cleveland,  the  fact 
being  that  the  activity  of  the  National  Prohibition  party  in 
the  State  of  New  York  diverted  enough  votes  from  the  Re- 
publican ticket  to  insure  the  election  of  Mr.  Cleveland, 
whose  plurality  in  New  York  was  about  1,300.  I  still 
claimed  allegiance  to  the  Democratic  National  party,  and 
when  the  news  of  Cleveland's  election  reached  Gatesville,  I 
was  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  big  torch-light  procession,  and 
one  of  the  speakers  at  the  ratification  of  the  election  of  the 
first  Democratic  president  since  the  Civil  War.  I  did  not 
know  very  much  of  the  National  Prohibition  party  move- 
ment, which  had  begun  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  in  1869.  I  had 
never  heard  of  the  National  Prohibition  party  until  the  1884 
campaign,  and  even  then  gave  it  scant  attention. 

But  having  so  actively  and  ardently  advocated  the  tem- 
perance and  prohibition  reform,  I  had  attracted  attention 
throughout  the  whole  country.  Early  in  the  spring  of  1884 
I  had  begun  to  receive  the  National  Prohibition  party  week- 
ly, The  New  York  Voice,  of  which  E.  J.  Wheeler  was  the 
editor.  The  Voice,  under  his  strong  and  virile  administra- 
tion, was  the  brightest  political  weekly  published  in  Amer- 
ica.   It  gripped  me  from  the  start,  and  yet  I  was  not  ready 

303 


304       DR.  J.  B.  GRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

to  join  the  National  Prohibition  party.  I  had  been  reared 
a  Democrat,  my  father  had  fought  in  the  Confederate  army, 
all  of  my  forebears,  as  far  back  as  I  had  any  history,  were 
Democrats;  some  of  my  father's  ancestors  had  fought  in 
the  Revolutionary  War,  and  I  was  unprepared  to  make  a 
political  change  which  seemed  to  involve  so  much. 

But  I  fought  on  for  temperance  and  prohibition.  Through 
the  two  years  that  elapsed  between  1884  and  1886,  I  stood 
with  the  Democratic  party,  local,  State  and  National.  My 
partner,  John  Post,  was  still  with  me.  Under  our  contract, 
he  managed  the  mechanical  department  and  I  managed  the 
editorial  department.  He  was  a  Hardshell  Baptist  and  an 
anti-Prohibitionist,  but  a  most  considerate  man  and  a  gentle- 
man to  his  heart's  core. 

When  the  precinct  convention  met  to  select  delegates  to 
the  county  convention  in  1886,  I  found  that  T  was,  to  use  a 
slang  expression,  up  against  the  real  thing.  The  whiskey 
men  had  combined  with  all  the  other  elements  in  the  com- 
munity to  defeat  me  for  delegate  to  the  county  convention. 
They  combed  the  town  and  outlying  districts  of  .precinct 
No.  I,  where  my  citizenship  was,  to  defeat  me,  and  accom- 
plished the  result  by  voting  a  number  of  negroes,  Mexi- 
cans, nondescript  toughs,  drunkards  and  bums.  That  was 
my  first  rebuff  in  local  politics.  It  woke  me  up  to  the  gravity 
of  the  liquor  business  as  never  before.  I  realized  that  the 
whiskey  men  demanded  that  they  not  only  have  the  right 
to  destroy  their  fellow  men  through  the  evils  of  the  drink 
traffic,  but  they  claimed  the  right  and  privilege  of  placing 
their  own  men  in  political  office  and  thus  choking  off  all 
opposition  in  the  party  of  which  we  all  were  members. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  I  failed  of  election  to  the 
County  Convention,  and  hence  to  the  State  Convention,  I 
attended  the  meeting  of  the  State  Convention  anyhow.  It 
met  at  Galveston.  The  Hon.  Thomas  Bonner,  of  Tyler, 
was  temporary  chairman.    That  was  the  convention  in  which 


AN  ENLARGING  FIELD  305 

Joe  W.  Bailey  first  began  to  be  a  commanding  figure  in 
Texas  politics.  He  was  then  a  Prohibitionist,  and  yet  he, 
together  with  other  politicians,  opposed  any  mention  of  the 
prohibition  matter  in  the  convention.  I  sought  by  every 
means  in  my  power  to  have  the  issue  again  presented  to 
the  body,  but  the  leading  temperance  men  of  the  State,  in 
whose  zeal  and  fidelity  I  had  entertained  the  highest  confi- 
dence, all  shied  off  from  the  issue,  and  went  their  separate 
ways,  leaving  me  high  and  dry,  with  not  a  single  sympa- 
thizer or  co-laborer.  An  interview  with  me  was  published 
in  The  Galveston  News  during  the  sessions  of  the  conven- 
tion, through  the  kind  offices  of  Wm.  O'Leary,  who  re- 
mained with  the  Dallas  and  Galveston  publications  until  he 
was  appointed  postmaster  of  Dallas,  in  which  position  he 
died.  To  him  I  detailed  my  convictions  along  prohibition 
lines.  I  had  become  by  that  time  thoroughly  indoctrinated 
in  the  principles  of  national  prohibition.  At  first  I  did  not 
realize  the  importance  of  making  the  prohibition  issue  a 
national  question,  but  the  more  I  studied  the  matter,  the 
that  prohibited  until  the  issue  covered  a  larger  territory 
than  a  precinct,  or  a  county,  or  even  a  State.  With  that 
belief  strong  upon  me,  and  despairing  of  ever  finding  help 
through  the  State  or  National  Democracy,  I  returned  home 
with  my  mind  made  up  to  lead  in  the  organization  of  the 
National  Prohibition  party  in  Texas. 

However,  I  had  a  duty  to  my  partner  to  perform.  On 
reaching  Gatesville,  I  sought  at  once  a  conference  with  Mr. 
Post,  who  was  half  owner  of  The  Gatesville  Advance.  In 
the  meantime,  we  had  consolidated  The  Advance  with  the 
older  newspaper.  The  Gatesville  Sun,  and  it  was  then  The 
Gatesville  Advance-Sun.  I  knew  that  Mr.  Post  was  an 
ardent  Democrat  as  well  as  an  ardent  anti-prohibitionist.  I 
was  unwilling  to  do  what  I  felt  would  probably  destroy  our 
paper  without  first  acquainting  him  with  my  determination, 
and  giving  him  an  opportunity  to  sell  out  to  me.    I  laid  the 


306       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

case  before  him.  I  told  him  it  was  my  purpose  to  call  at 
once  a  State  Prohibition  Convention  to  nominate  candidates 
for  the  State  offices.  I  felt  that  this  would  alienate  from 
me  a  large  percentage  of  my  supporters  and  subscribers,  and 
that  before  taking  any  steps  that  would  thus  tend  to  destroy 
our  paper,  I  wished  him  to  make  a  price  on  his  interest  and 
I  would  buy  him  out.  I  told  him  I  would  either  buy  him 
out  or  sell  out  to  him,  whichever  was  most  pleasing  to  him. 
It  was  at  this  point  that  the  nobility  of  the  man  shone  forth 
in  undying  lustre.    He  said : 

"  Doctor,  I  went  into  this  paper  work  with  you  for  better 
or  for  worse.  As  you  know,  we  do  not  agree  politically, 
but  under  our  contract  you  are  the  editor,  and  you  have  the 
absolute  right  to  determine  the  editorial  policy  of  the  pub- 
lication. Go  ahead  and  do  what  you  think  is  right  and  I 
will  stand  by  you." 

That  took  the  weight  of  the  world  off  my  shoulders.  I 
felt  then  absolutely  free  to  go  on  in  the  course  I  had  marked 
out,  and  to  give  the  best  that  was  in  me,  as  I  was  given 
light  to  see  it,  to  the  cause  I  loved  so  well.  The  following 
week  I  published  a  call  for  the  meeting  of  a  State  Prohibi- 
tion Party  Convention,  naming  September  7,  1886,  as  the 
date,  and  Dallas  as  the  place.  When  that  day  came,  a  large 
number  of  the  friends  of  prohibition  met  and,  after  due 
deliberation,  the  adoption  of  a  platform  and  the  passage  of 
stirring,  ringing  resolutions  against  the  liquor  traffic,  we 
nominated  Hon.  E.  L.  Dohoney  for  governor  and  Dr.  F.  E. 
Yoakum  for  lieutenant  governor.  Col.  Dohoney  lived  at 
Paris  and  Dr.  Yoakum  at  Greenville. 

But  this  step  did  not  ruin  The  Gatesville  Advance-Sun, 
It  helped  the  paper !  While  we  lost  some  of  our  local  sub- 
scribers, there  was  a  tremendous  increase  in  its  State  circu- 
lation. Colonel  Dohoney  was  a  good  writer  and  fearless  in 
his  advocacy  of  prohibition.  He  wrote  a  strong  appeal  to 
the  voters,  and  through  my  management  as  chairman  of  the 


AN  ENLARGING  FIELD  307 

State  Executive  Committee,  we  rolled  up  a  vote  of  19,186. 

This  startled  the  dominant  party  in  the  State,  and  at  the 
same  time  greatly  surprised  and  cheered  the  Prohobition- 
ists.  So  great  was  the  interest  it  evoked  on  the  part  of  the 
Texas  Democracy  that  the  word  was  passed  along  the  line 
that  we  would  possibly  be  able  to  achieve  what  we  had  long 
sought — the  submission  to  the  voters  of  Texas  of  a  pro- 
hibition constitutional  amendment.  The  Prohibitionists  felt 
that  if  we  could  have  a  State-wide  vote,  fairly  counted,  we 
would  be  able  to  drive  the  saloons  forever  from  our  borders. 
Colonel  Dohoney  had  been  a  member  of  the  Texas  Legis- 
lature in  1876,  when  the  present  State  constitution  was 
adopted,  and  had  assisted  in  writing  into  the  constitution 
the  provision  that  it  still  retains,  guaranteeing  to  local  com- 
munities the  right  to  vote  on  the  liquor  traffic.  He  was  well 
versed  in  all  the  lore  of  prohibition. 

The  election  of  1886  changed  the  course  of  my  life.  The 
Prohibitionists,  many  of  whom  I  now  had  met  and  person- 
ally knew,  realizing  the  vast  importance  of  larger  prohibition 
activities,  urged  me  to  move  my  publication  to  Waco,  and 
thus  seek  a  larger  clientele.  This  necessarily  led  to  a  dis- 
cussion between  Mr.  Post  and  myself  as  to  what  was  best 
to  do,  with  the  result  that  whereas  he  would  not  leave  me 
when  I  was  under  fire  and  possibly  confronting  irreparable 
loss,  he  was  willing  to  sell  out  to  me  .when  he  found  that 
the  paper  was  on  a  substantial  footing  and  had  gained  sub- 
scribers instead  of  having  suffered  a  decrease  in  its  sub- 
scription list.  The  result  was  that  I  bought  him  out  and 
became  sole  editor  and  proprietor  of  The  Gatesville  Ad- 
vance-Sun. 

It  did  not  take  me  long  to  decide  that  the  best  interests 
of  the  cause  to  which  I  had  now  dedicated  my  life  would 
be  subserved  by  a  removal  to  a  wider  field.  I  therefore 
journeyed  to  Waco  in  November  of  1886,  arranged  for 
office  room,  bought  new  material  and  a  new  dress  for  the 


308       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

paper  throughout.  It  was  thus  that  the  paper  appeared  as 
a  brighter,  better,  stronger,  more  convincing  journal  Janu- 
ary I,  1887,  as  The  Waco  Advance.  I  dropped  the  extra 
word  in  the  removal,  and  went  back  to  the  old  name  that  I 
loved  so  well.  We  actually  moved  to  Waco  Dec.  27,  1886 — 
the  day  that  B.  H.  Carroll  was  43  years  old. 


I 


XLIII 

OTHER  INCIDENTS  IN  THE  LIFE  AT 
GATESVILLE 

ONE  of  the  outstanding  principles  of  my  life  has  been 
never  to  forget  a  kindness  or  forsake  a  friend.  It 
is  now  my  pleasure  to  relate  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable exhibition  of  friendship  that  has  ever  blessed 
my  life.  Wherr  I  first  went  out  from  Turnersville  to  Gates- 
ville  during  the  initial  stages  of  The  Advance,  I  boarded  at 
The  Brinkman  House,  a  frame  hotel  presided  over  by  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  F.  Brinkman.  The  husband  was  a  native  of  Ger- 
many, but  had  been  in  this  country  so  long  that  he  was  per- 
fectly familiar  with  all  phases  of  American  life.  His  wife 
was  a  native  of  Texas.  She  was  one  of  the  truest,  noblest, 
kindest-hearted  and  most  genuinely  sincere  women  it  has 
ever  been  my  pleasure  to  know.  I  had  retained  my  office  in 
the  old  rawhide  lumber  building  owned  by  Dr.  Wills  just 
as  long  as  I  could.  Early  in  1885,  I  decided  to  seek  new 
quarters.  I  began  an  investigation  of  prices  of  lots  on  both 
Main  and  Leon  streets,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  erect- 
ing a  building  if  I  could  possibly  finance  it.  Mrs.  Brinkman 
heard  of  my  plans  and  sent  for  me  to  call  upon  her.  When 
I  went  into  the  room,  she  and  her  benevolent  husband  wel- 
comed me  with  unusual  kindness.  Their  faces  were  beam- 
ing with  smiles,  and  I  at  once  concluded  there  was  something 
extraordinary  on  foot.  The  grand,  big-hearted  German 
friend  said : 

"  Dr.  Cranfill,  we  learn  that  you  are  seeking  a  site  for  a 
building  that  is  to  be  the  home  of  The  Advance.    We  have 

309 


310       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

a  nice  lot  here  behind  our  hotel  on  Leon  Street,  and  my  wife 
and  I  have  made  a  deed  of  gift  of  that  lot  to  you,  and  here 
it  is!'' 

My  joy  and  gratitude  knew  no  bounds.  The  lot  was  not 
worth  a  great  deal  intrinsically,  probably  not  more  than 
$500,  but  the  spirit  behind  the  gift  was  one  that  I  cherished 
then  and  shall  remember  gratefully  to  my  dying  day.  I 
have  entirely  lost  sight  of  these  dear  friends.  It  has  been 
over  thirty  years  since  I  was  the  beneficiary  of  this  generous 
kindness.  I  have  passed  through  many  stirring  scenes,  as 
the  future  of  this  chronicle  will  testify,  but  the  day  has  never 
been  too  dark  nor  too  bright  for  me  to  recall  with  unfading 
joy  the  kindness  these  good  people  showered  upon  me. 

And  it  is  almost  the  only  thing  I  ever  had  given  to  me 
except  the  measles,  mumps  and  whooping  cough. 

An  amusing  incident  of  this  period  was  a  lecture  given  by 
my  Universalist  landlord,  Dr.  J.  B.  Wills.  The  West  Tex- 
ans  were  not  much  afraid  of  hell,  but  they  believed  in  it.  It 
is  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  the  wildest  sections  of  this  State 
in  its  wildest  period  the  men  who  themselves  are  in  the  thick 
of  the  most  desperate  criminalities  are  nominal  believers  in 
the  Christian  religion.  Not  that  they  ever  practice  it,  but 
they  have  a  contempt  for  atheists  and  infidels. 

There  was  no  organization  of  the  Universalist  church  in 
Gatesville,  and  so  far  as  I  know.  Dr.  Wills  was  the  only 
Universalist  there.  The  boys  made  up  to  give  him  a  rous- 
ing audience,  with  a  string  to  it.  They  entered  into  a  dia- 
bolical conspiracy.  They  agreed  that  they  would  go,  fill  the 
house,  and  then,  as  the  doctor  began  his  address,  two  of 
them  would  arise  and  adjourn.  When  he  had  spoken  two 
of  three  sentences,  two  more  would  walk  out,  and  so  on. 
The  doctor  was  greatly  cheered  when  he  confronted  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  audiences  of  men  ever  assembled  in 
Gatesville.  He  thought  the  whole  town  had  abolished  hell 
and  was  correspondingly  happy.    However,  when  his  audi- 


INCIDENTS  AT  GATESVILLE  311 

ence  began  to  thus  fade  away,  a  serious  look  stole  across  the 
old  man's  features.  It  became  more  serious  as  the  hall  emp- 
tied. When  it  was  about  half  empty,  one  could  see  that  he 
was  greatly  disturbed.  Finally,  the  crowd  narrowed  down 
until  only  two  of  the  boys  were  left.  He  stopped,  straight- 
ened himself  up  to  his  full  height,  and  said: 

"  I  came  here  tonight  to  preach  that  there  was  no  hell, 
but  I'll  be  blankety-blank-blank  if  there  isn't  a  hell  there 
ought  to  be  one  for  such  an  unconscionable  mob  as  I  have 
spoken  to  tonight." 

There  never  has  been  a  Universalist  service  in  (Tatesville 
since  that  time. 

After  my  new  office  was  built,  my  father,  still  a  resident 
of  TurnersvillCj  came  to  visit  me.  While  we  were  indulging 
in  desultory  conversation,  we  heard  a  fusilade  of  shots  up 
on  the  court  house  square.  I  grabbed  my  45  Colt  and  started 
to  run  up  to  where  the  shooting  was.  I  did  not  know 
whether  or  not  some  of  my  friends  were  involved,  and  if 
there  is  any  virtue  whatsoever  in  the  western  man,  it  is  that 
of  fidelity  to  his  friends  under  any  and  all  conditions.  My 
father,  however,  was  older  than  I  and  had  a  lot  more  sense. 
He  placed  himself  in  the  office  door,  and  barred  my  egress, 
saying : 

"Hold  on,  my  son.  I  know  you  want  to  go  up  there  and 
get  into  that  fight,  but  it  will  soon  be  over,  and  I  haven't 
any  sons  to  spare." 

And  he  was  right.  Soon  the  firing  ceased,  and  we  went 
up  together.  In  the  court  house  yard  we  found  three  men 
laid  out — old  man  Sauls,  his  son.  Dr.  Sauls,  and  Henry 
Basham.  Old  man  Sauls  was  shot  desperately  in  the  thigh. 
He  had  been  shot  by  a  Mason  while  giving  the  grand  Ma- 
sonic sign  of  distress.  He  was  unarmed.  His  son  was  lit- 
erally riddled  with  bullets,  but  was  still  alive.  There  were 
six  perforations  in  his  abdomen  by  as  many  pistol  balls. 
Basham  was  shot  in  the  shoulder  and  soon  recovered. 


312       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

This  trouble  came  about  from  the  age-old  controversy 
between  the  cattle  men  and  sheep  men.  The  Saulses  were 
sheep  men;  the  Bashams  were  cattle  men.  Out  in  the  sec- 
tion of  the  county  where  the  Saulses  established  their  sheep 
ranch,  the  sheep  had  eaten  down  the  range  very  close,  and 
the  cattle  men  were  incensed  very  deeply  at  the  sheep  men. 
The  result  was  that  some  kind  of  injunction  had  beun  sued 
out  in  the  court  to  stop  the  sheep  men  from  using  the  range. 
The  Bashams  and  their  friends  came  over  to  the  court  house 
armed  to  the  teeth,  and  Dr.  Sauls,  who  lived  at  Brenham, 
and  who  was  altogether  unfamiliar  with  the  temper  of  the 
Western  men,  also  came  up  armed,  but  he  was  armed  with 
a  small  calibre  revolver.  He  tanked  up  on  whiskey,  and 
this  was  really  what  precipitated  this  desperate  tragedy.  He 
began  to  curse  the  Bashams  and  to  make  hostile  demonstra- 
tions.   That  is  always  a  dangerous  thing  to  do  out  West. 

If  you  have  any  adverse  remarks  to  make  about  the  West- 
ern people,  make  them  somewhere  down  East,  and  when 
you  go  out  West,  keep  quiet. 

Dr.  Sauls  had  a  brother.  Green  Sauls,  living  there.  He 
was  wise  concerning  the  dangers  that  confronted  them,  but 
he  could  not  control  his  drunken  brother.  No  one  ever 
knew  how  many  friends  of  the  Bashams  were  engaged  in 
that  tragedy.  Both  the  Saulses  died.  They  were  removed 
to  the  Atkinson  Hotel  and  I  interviewed  them  both  before 
they  passed  away.  The  old  gentleman  was  a  Christian,  and 
a  man  of  most  excellent  character.  He  was  shot  down  in 
the  general  melee  because  he  was  a  Sauls.  The  young  doc- 
tor, who  was  a  brilliant  man,  was  sobered  up  by  the  tragedy, 
and  talked  quite  freely.  He  was  about  my  age.  He  said 
substantially  the  following: 

"  I  have  played  a  great  fool.  I  have  thrown  away  my  life. 
I  had  completed  my  medical  course,  and  before  that  my  col- 
lege course,  and  was  splendidly  equipped  for  my  life  work. 
I  have  a  good  medical  practice  down  at  Brenham,  and  many 


INCIDENTS  AT  GATESVILLE  313 

friends.  Whiskey  has  wrought  my  ruin.  I  realize  it  all 
now,  but  I  know  that  I  am  soon  to  die.  If  I  had  a  word  that 
I  could  say  to  young  men  everywhere,  I  would  warn  them 
to  beware  of  the  first  drink.    It  has  brought  me  to  this." 

The  old  gentleman  was  heart-broken  over  the  shooting  of 
his  son,  and  that  worried  him  more  than  his  own  calamity. 
I  assisted  in  taking  the  dying  testimony  of  both  of  them, 
which  I  afterwards  published  in  my  paper. 

Thus  ended  one  of  the  saddest  incidents  that  occurred 
during  my  Gatesville  residence.  It  was  sad  beyond  words 
on  account  of  the  general  features  of  the  tragedy.  It  was 
wholly  unnecessary,  looked  at  from  any  standpoint.  I  can 
see  that  court  house  square  as  these  words  are  penned.  I 
reached  the  square  before  Bill  Basham,  who  did  most  of 
the  execution,  had  been  arrested.  He  was  being  chased  by 
Sheriff  Lanham.  He  had  emptied  his  pistol,  but  it  was 
still  smoking.  Once  in  a  frenzy  of  almost  delirium,  he 
started  to  raise  his  empty  pistol  and  point  it  toward  the  sher- 
iff. Lanham  had  his  gun  drawn  in  a  second  and  would  have 
killed  him  if  he  hadn't  lowered  the  revolver.  Lanham  did 
not  know  the  gun  was  empty. 

Just  here  I  must  say  a  word  concerning  my  dear  wife. 
Our  third  child  was  born  while  we  lived  at  Gatesville.  God 
sent  him  to  us  December  24,  1883.  That  gave  her  a  great 
deal  of  work  to  do  in  the  care  of  her  children  alone,  but  in 
addition  to  this,  she  did  all  the  cooking  for  the  family  and 
for  our  printer  boys.  There  were  never  less  than  two  of 
the  boys  boarding  with  us  at  the  same  time,  and  the  dear 
little  wife,  with  such  help  as  I  could  give  her  between  times, 
did  all  this  work,  did  it  most  cheerfully,  and  was  my  strong 
right  hand  of  sympathy  and  help  during  all  those  trying 
years.  I  just  could  not  afford  to  hire  a  cook.  We  were  liv- 
ing very  closely.  Out  net  earnings  were  very  small.  I  had 
managed  to  save  out  of  the  funds  that  I  had  realized  from 
the  sale  of  properties  at  Turnersville  enough  money  to  buy 


314       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

a  lot  and  build  a  three-room  house.  This  was  our  little 
home,  and  was  paid  for.  There  the  wife  and  three  children, 
the  two  printers  and  I  were  housed,  and  we  fared  most 
handsomely.  Looking  back  upon  it  now,  I  do  not  see  how 
the  dear,  sweet  wife  was  able  to  do  all  the  work  that  thus 
fell  upon  her.  No  more  can  I  realize  how  I  got  through 
with  my  tasks.  They  were  hard  indeed.  I  do  not  mean  that 
we  had  no  pleasures.  We  had  many  pleasures  and  diver- 
sions, but  we  worked  heroically  every  hour  of  every  working 
day,  the  difference  between  my  wife  and  I  being  that  I  pro- 
tracted my  labors  far  into  the  night. 

During  all  these  years  at  Gatesville,  the  pall  of  mob  mur- 
der hung  about  us.  We  were  in  hourly  dread  of  the  visita- 
tion of  the  Coryell  County  assassins.  So  strong  was  this 
solicitude  upon  us  that  we  never  at  any  time,  winter  or 
summer,  lighted  a  lamp  in  our  house  until  all  the  curtains 
were  drawn.  We  felt  sure  that  if  any  assassin  could  slip 
upon  us  and  shoot  us  from  the  open  window,  this  would  be 
done.  My  wife  suffered  more  in  fear,  dread,  and  terror 
than  I  did,  but  never  once  did  she  wince,  never  once  did  she 
complain,  never  once  did  she  suggest  that  I  should  lower 
the  flag,  cringe  in  the  presence  of  wrong  or  forsake  the  field. 

During  much  of  this  period  I  was  teacher  of  the  Bible 
class  in  the  Gatesville  Sunday  School.  In  that  class  were 
many  of  the  leading  men  and  women  of  the  town.  I  recall 
now  my  dear  friend,  Dr.  J.  R.  Raby  and  his  wife,  who  for 
a  time  were  members  of  this  class;  his  younger  brother, 
Stoner  Raby,  who  is  now  a  leading  physician  of  Gatesville  ; 
Miss  Dola  Bledsoe,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  teachers  in  our 
public  schools  and  the  daughter  of  an  old-time  Texas  Bap- 
tist pioneer ;  Miss  Nobie  Tillman,  a  first  cousin  of  Dr.  E.  Y. 
MuUins,  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Theological  Seminary,  and 
who  afterwards  married  my  friend  Joe  Yarbrough,  of 
Waco ;  and  a  number  of  others  of  like  character  and  Chris- 
tian graces. 


INCIDENTS  AT  GATESVILLE  315 

The  Northern  and  Eastern  reader  will  wonder  how  a  man 
could  be  a  Sunday  School  teacher  and  at  the  some  time 
carry  a  45  Colt  revolver  in  his  hip  pocket.  The  fact  was 
that  I  put  my  revolver  in  my  pocket  every  morning  when  I 
put  on  my  trousers.  Indeed,  I  would  have  felt  much  more 
comfortable  going  up  the  street  without  trousers  than  I 
would  without  the  gun.  It  would  have  been  somewhat  more 
conspicuous,  and  far  more  dangerous.  The  tenderfoot  never 
will  understand  the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  West. 

I  recall  a  story  concerning  Captain  Bill  McDonald,  who  is 
now  the  United  Stated  States  Marshal  in  the  Dallas  district. 
For  many  years  he  was  a  ranger  on  the  Texas  frontier.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  superintendent  of  a  Western  Sunday 
School.  Very  early  on  a  certain  Sunday  morning  he  was 
apprised  that  a  number  of  Mexicans  were  engaged  in  steal- 
ing a  herd  of  horses  from  a  nearby  ranch.  He  hastened  to 
the  scene  and  discovered  the  report  to  be  true.  He  sought 
to  place  the  Mexicans  under  arrest,  but  they  were  handy 
with  their  guns  and  fired  upon  him.  The  result  was  that 
when  the  smoke  of  battle  cleared  away,  four  of  the  Mexi- 
cans were  dead.  The  officer  had  done  his  duty,  and  it  was 
still  time  for  Sunday  School,  so  Captain  McDonald  has- 
tened back  to  the  little  frontier  meeting  house  and  opened 
his  Sunday  School  as  usual. 

In  the  summer  of  1883  I  first  met  B.  H.  Carroll.  I  had 
gone  on  a  business  trip  to  Waco,  and  on  the  return  journey 
stopped  over  in  McGregor,  where  Dr.  Carroll  was  holding 
a  meeting.  I  shall  never  forget  the  first  time  I  looked  into 
his  noble  face  and  grasped  his  friendly  hand.  A  friendship 
there  began  that  endured  until  he  went  home  to  God.  After 
I  met  him,  I  went  many  a  Saturday  to  Waco  to  hear  him 
preach  the  following  day.  Dr.  Carroll's  sermons  were  so 
helpful,  so  informing,  so  inspiring,  that  I  could  not  resist 
the  impulse  to  be  in  Waco  to  hear  him  preach  once  a  month. 
During  that  period,  Waco  was  in  the  throes  of  a  great  re- 


316       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

ligious  sensation.  J.  D.  Shaw  had  apostasized  from  the 
Methodist  faith  and  had  begun  the  proclamation  of  infidel- 
ity. He  preached  his  new  doctrine  first  in  the  Methodist 
church,  but  later  the  Methodists  declined  to  allow  this  to 
be  done,  so  he  held  forth  in  the  Court  House.  Objection 
was  made  to  this  and  subsequently  a  hall  was  built  which  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Shaw  christened  "  Liberal  Hall."  This  be- 
gan in  1882.  I  had  no  sympathy  whatsoever  with  Mr. 
Shaw's  apostasies  nor  with  his  methods,  and  being  at  that 
time  rather  a  wild-eyed  frontier  editor,  I  named  his  new 
organization  in  Waco  the  ''Hell-and-damnation  Society." 
Many  were  the  editorials  I  wrote  along  these  lines,  castigat- 
ing, blistering,  caricaturing  and  satirizing  Mr.  Shaw  and  his 
contingents  to  the  very  best  of  my  ability. 

Dr.  Carroll  was  forced  to  reckon  with  the  new  departure 
of  Mr.  Shaw.  Early  in  1884,  Dr.  Carroll  preached  a  ser- 
mon entitled  "  The  Agnostic."  I  was  in  Waco  and  heard 
it.  It  occurred  to  me  that  it  would  do  good  published  in 
The  Gatesville  Advance,  and  I  asked  Dr.  Carroll  for  that 
privilege.  He  most  graciously  assented,  and  agreed  to  for- 
ward me  the  manuscript  in  an  early  mail.  The  sermon  was 
not  only  published  in  The  Advance,  but  appeared  in  pam- 
phlet form,  a  copy  of  which  I  still  possess.  Even  that  early 
in  our  friendship  I  suggested  to  Dr.  Carroll  that  he  ought 
to  give  his  great  sermons  and  addresses  to  the  world  in  per- 
manent form.  That  was  the  beginning  of  the  publication 
of  the  various  volumes  of  his  which  I  have  since  brought 
out. 

Soon  after  moving  to  Waco,  I  joined  the  First  Baptist 
Church,  of  which  Dr.  Carroll  was  pastor,  and  during  the 
almost  twelve  years  of  my  residence  there  I  was  blessed 
with  his  noble  and  gracious  ministrations-  To  him  more 
than  to  any  man  that  ever  lived,  I  owe  such  development 
along  religious  and  theological  lines  as  I  have  enjoyed.  I 
revered  him  as  a  teacher,  I  hung  upon  his  words  as  a  preach- 


INCIDENTS  AT  GATESVILLE  317 

er,  I  have  studied  him  as  a  theologian,  have  loved  him  as  a 
friend,  and  venerated  him  as  the  greatest  personality  with 
whom  I  have  ever  been  intimately  associated. 

During  1895,  after  I  had  become  editor  of  The  Baptist 
Standard,  which  was  at  that  time  being  published  in  Waco, 
I  brought  out  his  first  volume  of  sermons.  During  1912,  I 
brought  out  Baptists  and  Their  Doctrines  and  Evangelistic 
Sermons,  two  of  his  sermon  volumes.  I  am  now  at  work 
on  Carroll's  Interpretation  of  the  English  Bible.  Nine  of 
these  volumes  are  already  in  print.  I  regard  my  work  on 
Dr.  Carroll's  books  as  the  greatest  single  achievement  of 
my  life.  I  pray  that  the  Lord  may  spare  me  to  complete 
their  publication. 


XLIV 
ODDS  AND  ENDS  OF  THE  LIFE  AT  GATESVILLE 

AS  I  have  said  before,  when  The  Gatesville  Advance 
was  inaugurated,  a  remarkable  man  blew  into  the 
printing  office  one  morning,  fresh  from  the  road. 
He  had  tramped  all  the  way  from  Waco.  His  name  was 
Peter  Bartlett  Lee.  He  was  the  champion  tramp  printer  of 
the  western  world.  I  employed  him.  My  partner  was  drinking 
an  unusual  amount  at  that  time,  and  we  needed  extra  help. 
Lee  was  an  exceptionally  intelligent  man,  and  a  typographi- 
cal artist  of  the  highest  class.  When  he  came,  we  were  in 
the  throes  of  installing  our  job  printing  outfit.  The  first 
job  that  ever  came  into  the  office  was  the  funeral  notice  of 
L.  M.  Allen,  the  County  Clerk.  Lee  set  this  up  in  splendid 
style  and  the  office  boy  carried  the  notices  around  the 
square.  When  it  came  to  making  a  charge  of  this  item,  I 
asked  Mr.  Lee  the  price  of  a  job  like  that.  Straightening 
himself  to  his  full  height,  he  said : 

"  Well,  Doctor,  ordinarily  the  job  would  be  worth  $2.50, 
but  the  man  is  dead  and  it  is  the  last  chance  you  will  ever 
get  at  him.    I  would  charge  him  $5." 

Quite  solemnly  one  day  he  told  me  that  in  coming  across 
from  Illinois  to  Texas  he  started  to  cross  the  Mississippi 
River  bridge  at  St.  Louis,  but  was  shy  the  nickel  that  it 
took  to  pay  the  fare.  On  that  account  he  said  he  was  forced 
to  walk  around  by  the  head  of  the  Mississippi  in  order  to 
get  down  to  Texas.  He  was  an  inveterate  whiskey  drinker, 
and  could  stand  up  and  work  with  more  liquor  in  him  than 
any  animal  I  ever  knew.    One  night  when  we  were  work- 

318 


MORE  ODDS  AND  ENDS  319 

ing  off  the  paper,  he  called  for  his  third  quart  of  whiskey. 
It  was  then  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  Gates- 
ville  saloons  were  enterprising.  Some  of  them  kept  open 
all  night.  When  he  asked  for  his  third  quart,  I  demurred, 
stating  that  I  was  afraid  he  would  drink  too  much.  Very 
nonchalantly  he  replied : 

"  Doctor,  my  usual  allowance  is  four  quarts  a  day,  and 
up  to  this  hour  I  have  only  had  two  quarts.  Please  get  me 
the  booze." 

It  was  absolutely  essential  to  thus  accommodate  him  so 
as  to  keep  him  at  work,  so  the  whiskey  was  ordered  for 
him-  I  did  not  observe  closely  enough  to  ascertain  how 
much  of  this  third  bottle  he  consumed  that  night,  but  he 
worked  off  the. output  of  The  Advance  in  good  time,  and 
we  got  them  in  the  mail. 

This  remarkable  character  staid  with  me  only  three 
weeks.  One  morning  when  I  arose  (we  were  all  sleeping 
in  the  printing  office)  Peter  was  gone.  I  never  saw  him 
more. 

I  had  many  warm  and  loving  friends  at  Gatesville. 
Among  the  number  was  Y.  S.  Jenkins,  the  leading  druggist 
of  the  county.  Many  a  Saturday  I  would  borrow  money 
from  him  with  which  to  pay  my  printers.  Mr.  Jenkins 
never  failed  in  such  emergencies.  In  thinking  of  him,  I 
think  of  Dr.  J.  R.  Raby,  who,  while  we  were  in  Gatesville, 
was  our  family  physician,  and  whose  fidelity  to  his  friends 
was  one  of  the  noblest  of  his  many  admirable  traits.  He 
is  now  the  wealthiest  citizen  in  Coryell  County,  and  I  re- 
joice in  his  prosperity.  Sometime  I  may  strike  him  for  a 
loan. 

And  then  there  was  dear  old  R.  W-  Martin,  long  since 
gathered  to  his  fathers.  He  was  a  true,  noble,  loyal,  faith- 
ful, vigilant  and  helpful  friend.  He  and  his  good  wife, 
whom  he  affectionately  called  "  wif ey,"  were  often  in  our 
home  and  were  always  welcome.     During  all  of  our  resi- 


320       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

dence  in  Gatesville,  Rev.  P.  B.  Chandler  was  pastor  of  the 
Baptist  Church.  He  was  then  an  old  man.  He  was  not  a 
brilliant  preacher  nor  an  adaptable  pastor,  but  he  was  one 
of  the  best  men  I  ever  knew.  His  work  in  Gatesville  and 
in  Coryell  County  will  long  be  remembered.  He  was  one 
of  the  missionaries  sent  to  Texas  by  the  Home  Mission 
Board  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Convention  in  1845,  coming 
with  Dr.  Rufus  C.  Burleson.  He  lived  to  a  great  age,  and 
did  a  glorious  work. 

Another  one  of  my  good  friends  at  Gatesville  was  A.  R. 
Williams,  cashier  of  the  bank.  It  was  he  who  loaned  me 
the  $500  with  which  to  buy  out  the  interest  of  John  Post 
in  The  Gatesville  Advance-Sun.  When  I  left  Gatesville  to 
return  no  more,  he  gave  me  a  kind  letter  to  the  First  Na- 
tional Bank  of  Waco  which  was  of  great  value  to  me-  He 
was  one  of  the  handsomest  men  I  ever  knew.  I  am  told 
that  now  his  long  black  beard  and  hair  are  white.  Wher- 
ever he  is,  he  has  my  heart's  warm  gratitude  for  the  gener- 
ous kindness  shown  me  in  those  crucial  days. 

Among  my  friends  was  Col.  H.  N.  Atkinson,  a  leading 
lawyer,  who  showed  me  many  courtesies. 

While  publishing  The  Gatesville  Advance,  I  confronted 
my  first  printers'  strike.  My  printers  were  non-union  men, 
but  they  struck  just  the  same.  The  union  printers  in  Waco 
had  struck,  and  advertisements  were  sent  out  calling  for 
non-union  men.  All  of  my  force  went.  In  the  meantime, 
my  good  friend,  W.  D.  Shaw,  had  left  Gatesville.  He  never 
would  have  forsaken  me  in  a  time  like  that.  I  was  suffer- 
ing very  seriously  with  yellow  jaundice  and  was  barely  able 
to  pull  one  foot  after  the  other,  but  the  whole  bunch  of 
boys  got  excited,  and  away  they  went.  I  never  had  it  in 
my  heart  to  blame  them  too  severely.  They  soon  came 
back,  but  in  the  meantime  I  had  the  burden  of  the  paper  and 
the  illness  all  upon  me  at  one  time.  There  was  some  credit 
in  being  jolly,  as  Mark  Tarpley  would  say,  under  conditions 


MORE  ODDS  AND  ENDS  321 

like  these-  I  worked  all  the  harder  and  brought  my  paper 
out  on  time,  although  I  flung  in  an  unusual  number  of  dead 
cuts  as  space-fillers  in  order  to  win  the  victory. 

Referring  finally  to  W.  D.  Shaw,  he  came  to  me  after  I 
moved  to  Waco,  but  did  not  remain  long.  He  drifted  to 
Houston,  remaining  in  the  grip  of  his  old  enemy,  the  whis- 
key habit.  In  the  early  summer  of  1887,  he  died  on  the 
streets  of  Houston  with  delirium  tremens.  Thus  passed  a 
noble-hearted  man,  adding  one  more  victim  to  the  countless 
millions  of  the  race  who  have  gone  to  destruction  through 
the  drink  traffic. 


k 


XLV 
OUR  FIRST  GREAT  SORROW 

OUR  BABY  was  born  December  24,  1883.  We  named 
him  after  B.  H.  Carroll.  He  was  a  bright,  sweet 
child  and  the  tendrils  of  our  hearts  clung  around 
him  with  a  deathless  love.  I  had  never  known  a  great 
sorrow.  There  had  never  been  a  death  in  our  family,  and 
I  was  the  youngest,  then  nearly  twenty-eight  years  old. 
June,  1886,  the  baby,  then  two-and-a-half  years  old,  fell  ill. 
There  have  been  many  bright  and  joyous  children  since 
time  was  young.  They  have  been  trooping  through  this 
sad  old  world  to  make  it  bright  and  joyous  and  glad,  but  it 
seemed  to  us  that  among  all  the  little  ones  God  ever  sent 
to  earth,  our  baby  was  the  sweetest.  He  was  so  bright,  so 
loving,  so  cheery  and  so  inspiring  that  the  thought  never 
once  came  to  us  that  we  would  ever  have  to  give  him  up. 

At  first  he  was  not  very  ill,  but  as  the  days  passed  the 
fever  clung  to  him  until  we  became  alarmed.  I  had  seen 
many  cases  such  as  his  that  made  quick  recovery,  and  so 
I  did  not  feel  that  he  was  destined  to  suffer  from  a  long 
siege  of  illness.  We  called  Dr.  J.  R.  Raby  and  he  cheered 
us  with  the  hope  that  the  baby  would  soon  be  well. 

But  the  fever  was  stubborn.  June  passed,  the  first  hot 
days  of  July  came,  and  the  little  fellow  weaker  and  weaker 
grew  as  the  days  passed  by.  We  watched  with  him  night 
after  night.  I  practically  abandoned  my  office  by  day  and 
remained  at  his  side.  Everything  that  our  nursing  and  the 
physician's  skill  could  accomplish  was  done.  On  the  20th 
of  July  the  fever  left  him.     Oh,  how  glad  we  were  when 

322 


Carroll  Britton  Cranfill,  Born  December  24,  1883; 
Died  July  26,  1886. 


OUR  FIRST  GREAT  SORROW  323 

the  doctor  assured  us  that  the  chances  for  his  recovery 
were  very  great!  On  the  21st  he  was  still  better.  He  had 
been  ill  so  long  that  there  was  no  color  of  blood  left  in  his 
face  or  in  his  little  hands.  He  was  very,  very  weak,  but 
still,  with  the  departure  of  the  fever,  we  felt  very  nopeful 
indeed.  The  22nd  came  and  the  23rd,  and  he  was  still  im- 
proving. On  the  26th  the  State  Convention  of  the  United 
Friends  of  Temperance  was  to  be  held  at  Ennis.  I  was 
quite  active  in  all  the  temperance  work  in  Texas.  On  the 
25th  I  asked  the  physician  if  it  would  be  safe  for  me  to 
leave  the  baby.  He  said  it  would.  There  was  every  evi- 
dence to  my  own  mind  that  the  little  fellow  was  convales- 
cent. On  the  afternoon  of  the  25th  I  left  for  Corsicana, 
intending  to  run  up  to  Ennis  the  following  morning.  Mean- 
time I  had  left  word  at  home  for  a  telegram  to  be  sent  me 
that  night,  advising  me  of  the  baby's  condition.  In  the 
event  he  had  suffered  a  relapse  of  any  kind,  I  meant  to  re- 
turn home  on  the  morning  train. 

One  of  my  dearest  friends  in  those  days  was  Rev-  S.  G. 
Mullins,  of  Corsicana.  His  brother,  John  MuUins,  and  wife 
lived  in  Gatesville.  They  were  often  in  my  Sunday  School 
class.  When  I  reached  Corsicana  I  went  to  the  home  of 
Brother  Mullins  to  spend  the  night.  Living  in  his  home 
at  that  time  was  a  bright  son  of  his,  E.  Y.  Mullins,  now 
president  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Theological  Seminary. 
He  was  at  that  time  a  telegraph  operator.  After  supper  I 
went  down  town  with  Mr.  Mullins  to  see  if  I  could  secure 
some  word  from  home.  He  went  to  his  desk,  took  up  his 
key  and  soon  established  communication  with  the  Gates- 
ville operator.  It  seemed  that  just  at  that  time  a  telegram 
to  me  was  being  filed.  The  tension  of  the  moment  was 
very  great.  Every  event  of  that  hour  is  as  indelibly  im- 
pressed upon  my  memory  as  if  they  had  happened  yester- 
day. As  I  sat  there  awaiting  word  from  home,  Edgar  Mul- 
lins turned  to  me,  and  in  the  most  considerate  tone  of  voice 


324       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

he  could  command,  he  said,  "Your  baby  is  dead."  The 
announcement  broke  my  heart.  His  death,  if  I  had  been 
there  with  him,  would  have  been  unspeakably  sad,  but  to 
have  the  little  fellow  go  while  I  was  away,  and  after  high 
hopes  of  his  speedy  recovery  had  filled  our  hearts,  was  al- 
most too  much  for  me  to  bear.  I  broke  down  under  it. 
There  was  a  long  night  through  which  I  must  inevitably 
be  away  from  my  sorrowing  loved  ones,  as  it  was  impossi- 
ble for  me  to  start  on  the  homeward  way  until  next  morn- 
ing. 

During  the  illness  of  the  baby,  he  suffered  much-  He 
was  very  fond  of  singing,  and  I  had  often  sung  to  him. 
During  his  hours  of  stress  and  pain,  he  would  clasp  his 
little  arms  around  my  neck  and  say  in  his  baby  way,  "  Papa, 
sing."  I  can  hear  the  words  this  day  as  these  sentences 
are  penned.  I  can  see  his  little  body  as  he  lay  there  in  his 
bed  in  the  grip  of  the  consuming  fever,  and  as  I  write,  his 
dear,  sweet  baby  form  and  face  are  before  me  just  as  fresh 
as  they  were  then,  when  every  hour  of  the  day  I  could 
hear  his  voice  and  so  often  I  could  feel  the  pressure  of  his 
baby  hands  upon  my  face. 

Next  morning  I  took  the  train  for  home,  arriving  there 
at  2  P.  M.  I  will  not  attempt  to  reproduce  the  harrowing 
scenes  of  that  first  great  sorrow.  Those  of  you  who  have 
seen  the  first  coffin  come  into  the  home;  who  have  wit- 
nessed the  unfolding  of  the  first  white  shroud;  who  have 
heard  the  rumble  of  the  wheels  of  the  first  hearse  that  ever 
paused  before  your  door;  who  have  looked  into  the  still, 
pale  face  of  the  first  loved  one  that  ever  went  away  to  leave 
you  here  alone ;  you  who  have  heard  the  first  clod  fall  upon 
the  casket  of  your  best  beloved — all  of  you  know  now  bet- 
ter than  I  can  set  down  here  what  the  weary  hours  of  that 
first  bereavement  meant  to  us. 

Next  day  we  laid  him  in  his  little  grave,  and  his  sleeping 
dust  rests  there  today.     It  has  been  more  than  twenty-nine 


OUR  FIRST  GREAT  SORROW  325 

years  since  he  went  home.  If  he  had  lived,  he  would  be 
thirty-two  now,  and  a  great,  strong,  stalwart  man.  His 
baby  picture,  enlarged  almost  to  life  size,  hangs  upon  the 
wall  of  our  home,  and  his  every  feature  yet  lingers  in  our 
aching  hearts. 

No,  we  have  never  recovered  from  the  blow.  We  never 
will.  No  one  ever  does.  It  is  true  that  "  Earth  has  no  sor- 
row that  Heaven  cannot  heal,"  but  Heaven  heals  the  sorrow 
after  we  get  to  Heaven. 

I  have  seen  this  baby  face  smiling  up  at  me  ten  thousand 
times  since  then  in  the  faces  of  other  little  children  whom 
I  have  met  and  loved. 

I  have  heard  his  tender,  childish  voice  in  the  gentle  prat- 
tle of  every  little  child  who  has  ever  sung  his  childhood 
songs  into  my  ear. 

I  have  felt  his  baby  arms  around  my  neck  in  the  caresses 
of  every  other  baby  I  have  known  since  then. 

As  these  words  are  penned,  I  rejoice  in  the  blessing  of 
four  grandchildren,  who  are  old  enough  to  know  me,  to  kiss 
me,  to  love  me,  to  caress  me  and  to  clasp  their  arms  around 
my  neck.  I  love  them  just  as  much,  it  seems  to  me,  as  I 
loved  him,  and  yet  with  all  the  love  I  bear  these  children  of 
my  other  boy,  there  is  an  aching  void  in  my  hungry  heart 
that  no  other  life  has  ever  filled-  It  will  be  there  when  God 
calls  me  home. 

In  the  next  week's  issue  of  my  paper  I  published  the  fol- 
lowing short  tribute  to  our  baby  child,  and  a  little  while 
after,  other  recollections  of  him.  These  I  set  down  here, 
in  order  that  they  may  serve  in  their  weak  way  to  comfort 
some  who  sadly  weep  beside  the  new  made  grave  of  their 
own  loved  ones  they  have  "  loved  and  lost  a  while :" 

"  Our  baby  is  dead.  Just  as  the  sunlight  of  his  joyous 
life  was  shedding  its  brightest  beams  in  our  home,  God 
took  him.  The  merry  prattle  of  his  childish  voice  is  gone. 
The  house  is  hushed.    A  muffled,  voiceless  sadness  broods 


326       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

all  around  a  home  that  this  young  life  had  made  bright  and 
happy  and  radiant  with  childish  innocence  and  love.  It 
would  not  seem  so  hard  to  give  him  up  if  he  had  died  in  his 
earlier  infancy.  But  after  the  angel  lips  had  learned  to  lisp 
his  mother's  name,  and  after  his  tender  childish  words  were 
all  in  all  to  us,  he  went  away.  But  we  will  all  soon  follow 
after.  He  was  born,  he  lived,  he  died.  This  is  the  sum 
of  every  human  life.  The  pall  of  death  lingers  around  our 
home,  but  the  saved  in  Heaven  have  another  voice  in  their 
angelic  choir.  When  before  he  died  he  so  often  asked  us 
all  to  sing,  he  was  hearing  the  distant  music  of  the  land  of 
God.  He  is  with  them  now,  and  will  wait  to  welcome  us 
when  we,  too,  are  called  to  join  the  hosts  who  have  gone  on. 

"  We  have  for  many  years  chronicled  the  death  of  other 
people's  children.  In  every  sad  notice  of  death's  silent 
march  we  have  extended  words  of  sympathy  as  best  we 
could  to  those  bereaved.  But  in  this  hour,  when  our  own 
dear  child  has  left  our  home  never  to  come  again,  how 
empty  sounds  the  voice  of  human  sympathy!  No  words 
can  heal  the  wound  in  our  hearts ;  no  voice  can  chase  away 
the  sadness  that  lingers  about  our  home.  To  those  who  are 
thus  bereaved,  all  save  the  voice  of  God  is  dumb.  But  the 
angels  seem  to  whisper  as  we  drop  tears  of  pain  upon  these 
sad  lines,  *  He  will  meet  you  at  the  river  when  the  Father 
calls  you  home.'  And  now  let  us  draw  the  drapery  of 
silence  around  our  baby's  grave.  No  one  can  heal  our 
wounded  hearts,  but  the  hand  of  God  will  touch  the  scars, 
and  when  our  last  work  is  done,  we  will  go  to  meet  our 
darling  in  a  home  where  there  is  no  death,  and  where  sor- 
row and  sadness  never  come." 

Later  on  I  published  the  following : 

"  Solemn  stillness  reigns  the  house  around.  It  is  a  rainy 
day.  Pattering  in  huge  limpid  drops  the  rain  is  falling  upon 
our  baby's  grave-  Until  now,  the  dry,  hard  earth  was  his 
only  shelter  from  the  light  of  day,  but  the  rain-drops  will 


OUR  FIRST  GREAT  SORROW  327 

cement  the  bits  of  earth  and  make  the  body  of  our  darling 
more  secure  in  the  little  grave  where  we  so  tenderly  laid 
him. 

"  Days  have  passed  since  then  and  have  lengthened  into 
weeks,  but  the  echo  of  his  childish  voice  rings  through  the 
house  as  it  was  wont  to  do  in  the  days  before  the  fever  came 
and  took  the  rose  of  life  from  out  his  tender  cheeks  The 
rattle  of  the  wheels  of  his  little  wagon,  the  patter  of  child- 
ish feet  upon  the  floor,  the  music  of  his  voice  as  he  calls  to 
'  papa,'  all  come  back  today  as  they  did  when  his  little  arms 
clung  tenderly  around  our  neck. 

"  Our  dead  baby !  We  can  see  his  face  peep  through  the 
palings  of  the  fence  and  can  hear  his  childish  welcome  as 
we  go  home  at  eventide  as  in  days  of  yore.  But  these 
visions  are  but  echoes  of  a  joy  that's  gone;  the  perfume  of 
a  faded  flower,  the  ashes  of  a  memory  that  his  young  child- 
life  filled  with  radiance  and  love.  The  world  without  is 
cold,  relentless,  cruel ;  but  in  the  home  we  have  found  ever 
a  bright  welcome,  a  happy  home-circle,  a  tender  kiss  from 
our  sweet  child.  Now  that  is  gone.  And  as  the  rain-drops 
fall  upon  the  roof,  and  the  autumn  winds  moan  in  the  tree- 
tops  their  sad  refrain,  we  would  not  be  sorry  if  they  sung 
our  own  funereal  dirge.  We  did  not  feel  that  we  would 
miss  our  darling  as  we  do.  Knowing  that  he  had  gone  to 
God  and  was  safe  in  his  eternal  Home,  we  had  hoped  to  feel 
at  ease  about  him  and  reconcile  our  heart  to  his  absence. 
But  we  cannot  drive  back  the  burden  from  our  heart  or 
chase  away  the  shadows  that  linger  around  our  home.  The 
brightest  eyes,  the  tenderest  voice,  the  merriest  prattle,  the 
most  joyous  heart — all  are  gone  from  our  home  forever, 
and  on  this  rainy  day  when  the  town  is  in  doors,  and  the 
voice  of  the  rabble  hushed,  how  the  memory  of  our  dead 
child  comes  back  in  all  the  freshness  of  a  heart's  first  grief ! 

"  No  one  but  God  knew  how  we  loved  him.  He  had 
twined  himself  about  our  hearts  with  three-fold  cords  of 


328       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

love,  and  when  we  laid  him  in  his  grave,  the  tendrils  of  af- 
fection were  not  broken,  but  lengthened  out  and  clung  to 
his  dead  form  even  as  it  lay  buried  beneath  the  sod.  As 
the  days  come  and  go,  we  do  not  find  the  sorrow  fading 
from  our  heart.  His  little  chair,  his  tiny  shoes,  his  bits 
of  plaything  all  about  the  house — these  bring  his  bright 
face  before  us  a  hundred  times  a  day;  and  when  the  great 
world  is  shrouded  in  the  dark  mantle  of  night,  we  can  hear 
his  tender  voice  say,  '  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep,'  as  he 
says  his  childish  prayer. 

"  This  rainy  day  brings  all  these  past  joys  before  us  like 
they  were  when  they  were  the  gems  of  passing  life,  and 
never  can  we  forget  the  voice,  the  form,  the  love  of  our 
dead  baby.  They  are  graven  on  the  heart  in  images  of  af- 
fection that  will  last  until  God  re-unites  us  on  the  other 
shore." 

The  baby's  death  was  a  distinct  epoch  in  my  life  in  more 
ways  than  one.  I  have  already  recited  in  this  chronicle 
that  ten  years  before,  when  I  was  first  converted,  I  felt 
the  impression  to  be  a  preacher  of  Christ's  Word.  I  had 
wandered  far.  Not  that  I  had  wholly  forgotten  God.  That 
never  has  been  my  state  of  mind  or  heart  at  any  time  since 
I  first  knew  the  Lord.  But  I  did  not  want  to  be  a  preacher. 
I  felt  that  I  was  so  disqualified  in  so  many  ways  for  that 
high  task  that  I  shrank  from  it  in  every  way.  Out  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night,  when  our  little  baby  nestled  on  his 
mother's  heart,  and  our  solicitude  for  him  knew  no  bounds, 
I  prayed  that  God  might  spare  his  life,  anS  promised  the 
Master  that  if  He  would  let  the  baby  live,  I  would  re-enter 
the  ministerial  life  and  thus  dedicate  all  of  my  talents  and 
time  and  strength  to  God  in  that  greatest  of  all  of  life's  great 
work. 

God's  ear  was  deaf  to  both  this  promise  and  this  prayer. 
The  good  Lord  knew  better  than  I  that  if  He  spared  the 
child  I  would  forget  the  promise.     Oh,  how  often  it  has 


OUR  FIRST  GREAT  SORROW  329 

happened  to  you  and  me  that  in  our  times  of  stress  and  pain 
we  have  made  high  and  strong  resolutions  for  the  better 
life,  and  when  the  sickness  and  pain  are  gone,  we  have  for- 
gotten them  every  one,  and  have  gone  back  into  our  care- 
less, listless,  God-forgetting  ways  again !  If  the  baby  had 
lived,  I  would  not  have  kept  my  promise.  Of  this  I  am  very 
sure.  God  took  the  child,  thus  breaking  my  heart  and  mak- 
ing me  willing  to  bear  whatever  yoke  of  service  He  would 
place  upon  my  neck.  There  at  the  baby's  grave,  with  all 
my  high  hopes  of  my  sweet  child  buried  to  rise  on  earth  no 
more,  I  re-dedicated  my  life  to  God  and  promised  Him  that 
come  what  might,  I  would  yield  to  my  impressions  to  be  a 
minister  for  Him  and  to  go  wheresoever  His  Spirit  might 
lead- 

On  the  following  Sabbath  morning,  I  told  this  simple 
story  to  the  church,  confessing  all.  I  kept  back  nothing.  I 
excused  nothing.  I  was  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent  in 
the  Master's  name.  I  did  not  ask  for  ordination,  but  laid 
the  case  before  the  church  in  my  heart-broken  way.  They 
sympathized  with  me,  and  at  a  subsequent  conference  they 
licensed  me  to  preach  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed 
God. 

And  now,  reviewing  life  from  the  high  eminence  of  a  man 
at  fifty-seven  years,  my  chief  regret  is  that  I  ever  wandered 
in  after  days  from  the  firm  purpose  that  pulsed  in  my  bleed- 
ing heart  on  that  day  in  the  long  ago.  More  than  twenty- 
nine  years  have  come  and  gone  since  then,  and  looking  back 
across  the  zig-zag  track  of  these  eventful  years,  I  see  that  I 
have  not  kept  to  the  high  conviction  that  thrilled  me  then. 
How  much  I  wish  I  had !  In  a  sort  of  half-hearted,  crippled 
way,  now  and  then  I  have  crossed  the  path  that  leads  from 
earth  to  Heaven,  but  I  canot  claim  that  I  have  walked  there- 
in. How  sad  that  it  should  ever  have  been  so  with  me,  or 
that  it  should  ever  at  any  time  be  so  with  you ! 


XLVI 

MY  FIRST  BAPTIST  STATE  CONVENTION 

DURING  August  of  1885,  I  attended  my  first  Bap- 
tist State  Convention.  The  Gatesville  church  elect- 
ed me  as  a  delegate,  and  the  convention  met  at 
Lampasas,  where  at  that  time  Rev.  J.  M.  Carroll  was  pas- 
tor. The  consolidation  of  the  Baptist  general  bodies  of 
Texas  did  not  occur  until  the  following  July.  It  thus  fell 
out  that  my  first  convention  was  the  last  meeting  of  the  old 
Baptist  State  Convention.  At  that  session  of  the  body  the 
basis  of  consolidation  was  agreed  upon,  and  the  following 
year  it  was  consummated. 

One  of  the  most  impressive  scenes  of  that  occasion  was 
an  incident  that  occurred  just  after  the  adjournment  on  the 
first  day.  I  was  a  new  hand,  and  entirely  fresh  at  the  Bap- 
tist State  Convention  business.  I  had  witnessed  a  number 
of  encounters  of  one  sort  or  another  in  the  West,  but  never 
had  seen  one  in  a  Baptist  church  house.  There  was  one 
just  the  same,  which  came  very  near  culminating  in  physical 
violence.  O.  C.  Pope,  who  was  at  that  time  Corresponding 
Secretary  of  the  Baptist  State  Convention,  came  up  to  S.  A. 
Hayden,  who  was  a  visitor,  and  demanded  that  Hayden  re- 
tract some  statements  he  had  made  in  The  Texas  Baptist 
concerning  Pope.  Hayden  was  profuse  in  his  protestations, 
and  said  that  he  would  take  the  matter  under  advisement 
Pope  raised  his  ebony  cane  and  said : 

"  You  have  got  to  retract  it  right  here,  and  promise  to 
retract  it  in  the  very  next  issue  of  your  paper  1 " 

Hayden  promptly  consented  to  this  procedure  and  the 

330 


MY  FIRST  BAPTIST  CONVENTION       331 

threatened  encounter  was  safely  passed.  Of  that  meeting 
F.  M.  Law  was  president.  He  was  one  of  the  noblest  men 
the  Baptists  of  Texas  ever  knew.  I  had  occasion  to  be 
grateful  then  and  ever  after  for  his  unselfish,  loyal,  great- 
hearted friendship.  I  took  no  prominent  part  in  the  delib- 
erations except  in  connection  with  the  report  on  the  atti- 
tude of  Baptists  toward  the  liquor  traffic.  Dr.  Law  ap- 
pointed me  chairman  of  that  committee,  and  I  wrote  a  re- 
port with  teeth  in  it.  It  committed  the  old  Baptist  State 
Convention  to  a  more  vigorous  denimciation  of  the  liquor 
traffic  than  perhaps  they  had  ever  known,  but  it  was  unani- 
mously passed.  On  the  same  committee  was  John  B.  Scar- 
borough, who  years  afterwards  was  my  next  door  neighbor 
in  Waco.  That  was  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  J.  M.  Carroll. 
He  met  the  messengers  to  the  Convention  down  between 
Lampasas  and  Temple,  and  on  the  train  assigned  us  to 
our  homes.  He  was  one  of  the  handsomest  men  I  had  ever 
seen-  He  was  dressed  in  a  light  suit,  was  in  his  prime,  was 
then,  as  always  before  and  after,  one  of  the  gentlest,  kind- 
est-hearted, most  considerate  and  most  useful  men  it  has 
ever  been  my  pleasure  to  know. 

I  had  met  J.  B.  Link  before.  He  visited  Gatesville  in 
1884  and  was  a  member,  on  that  occasion,  of  my  Sunday 
School  class.  He  had  exchanged  with  The  Advance,  being 
himself  at  that  time  editor  of  The  Texas  Baptist  Herald. 
When  he  went  back  to  Austin,  he  wrote  me  an  invitation  to 
come  to  Austin  and  aid  him  in  the  publication  of  The  Texas 
Baptist  Herald.  He  felt  that  he  had  discovered  in  me  edi- 
torial ability,  and  seemed  anxious  for  me  to  come  and  join 
my  energies  with  his.  He  oflFered  me  a  reasonably  good 
salary  for  work  of  that  class,  but  my  heart  had  turned  more 
strongly  to  the  prohibition  work ;  and  while,  at  the  time  of 
his  visit  to  Gatesvile,  I  had  not  matured  any  plans  for  re- 
moving to  Waco,  I  was  even  then  casting  about  for  a  wider 
field  than  Gatesville  furnished  me. 


332       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

During  our  residence  at  Gatesville,  F.  Kiefer  held  a  re- 
vival. During  this  revival  my  wife  was  converted  and 
joined  the  Baptist  Church.  She  had  been  reared  a  Meth- 
odist, but  gradually  she  came  into  the  full  gospel  light,  and 
when  she  was  converted,  it  was  her  desire  to  follow  her 
Lord  in  baptism.  It  is  amazing  what  splendid  Baptists 
these  sweet  Methodist  women  make  when  they  get  on  the 
right  track! 

She  did  not  fall  deeply  in  love  with  M.  T.  Martin,  who 
came  up  the  following  year  and  held  a  meeting  with  the 
Gatesville  church.  He  was  a  guest  in  our  home,  and  after 
talking  with  her  a  little  while,  he  informed  her  that  she  had 
never  been  converted.  She  never  quite  forgave  him  for 
this  questioning  of  her  faith  in  Christ.  I  knew  better  than 
Brother  Martin  about  that.  The  dear  man  was  too  ready 
to  thus  call  in  question  the  faith  of  God*s  most  faithful 
saints,  and  I  think  it  was  one  of  the  weakest  points  in  the 
new  notions  that  he  brought  with  him  to  Texas- 

When  we  were  preparing  to  leave  Gatesville,  I  sold  my 
home  to  the  Baptist  church  there  for  a  pastorium,  and  ever 
since  that  time  it  has  been  church  property.  Needed  addi- 
tions were  made,  but  the  three  rooms  of  the  original  house 
I  built  there  still  remain.  The  first  pastor  to  occupy  this 
home  was  N.  A.  Scale,  one  of  the  best  and  noblest  Baptist 
preachers  Texas  ever  knew.  As  I  moved  out,  he  and  his 
family  moved  in.  Before  I  left,  I  learned  to  know  him 
well,  and  until  the  day  of  his  death  he  was  one  of  the  dear- 
est friends  I  ever  had. 


J.    B.   CkANFILL  AND  LUTHER   BeNSON. 


XLVII 
LUTHER  BENSON 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  incidents  of  1884  was  the 
visit  to  Gatesville  of  Luther  Benson,  the  great  tem- 
perance lecturer.  There  were  none  mightier  than  he. 
He  wrote  me  his  congratulations  when  he  first  saw  the  bold 
stand  I  had  taken  against  the  liquor  traffic.  The  result  was 
that  I  invited  him  to  visit  Gatesville.  He  came-  He  reached 
the  town  on  a  Sunday  afternoon.  I  had  advertised  the  meet- 
ing well.  I  had  never  met  Benson.  I  did  not  even  know 
of  his  colossal  power.  I  was  aware  that  he  had  stirred  the 
hearts  of  people  wherever  he  had  gone,  but  I  was  not  pre- 
pared to  meet  the  man  whom  I  believe  to  have  been  the  great- 
est temperance  orator  of  his  day.  Never  had  I  listened  to 
such  a  torrential  deliverance  on  any  subject  as  flowed  from 
his  matchless  lips.  He  spoke  300  words  a  minute.  There 
never  has  been  a  counterpart  of  Luther  Benson  on  the 
American  platform.  John  B.  Finch  was  perhaps  more  logi- 
cal. I  doubt  not  that  in  a  prohibition  campaign  Finch  was 
the  most  convincing  orator  this  country  ever  produced.  John 
B.  Cough,  it  was  said  by  those  who  heard  him,  was  a  com- 
bination of  the  orator  and  logician.  On  the  temperance 
question,  Luther  Benson  appealed  to  the  human  heart  as 
perhaps  no  other  man  has  ever  done.  Since  then  I  have 
heard  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He  was  a  titanic  orator,  but 
his  style  of  oratory  and  that  of  Benson's  can  really  not  be 
compared.  Benson  talked  with  tears  in  his  voice,  and  ap- 
pealed to  men  to  give  up  drink  and  give  up  voting  for  the 
liquor  traffic. 

333 


334       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

He  brought  with  him  a  large  supply  of  his  book,  Fifteen 
Years  in  Hell,  and  sold  them  all  out  that  first  day.  He 
never  took  books  enough.  He  lectured  in  Gatesville  again 
Monday  and  Tuesday  nights,  and  then  we  journeyed  to  Waco 
where  I  had  arranged  for  him  to  speak  in  the  First  Baptist 
Church,  of  which  Dr.  Carroll  was  pastor.  While  in  Waco 
we  had  a  picture  taken,  which  is  published  herewith. 

He  had  a  very  keen  sense  of  humor.  He  told  me  that  a 
friend  of  his  came  to  him  once  and  said : 

"  Luther,  tomorrow  my  wife  and  I  celebrate  the  fifteenth 
anniversary  of  our  wedding.  I  want  to  give  her  an  appro- 
priate remembrance  of  our  marriage.  What  would  you  sug- 
gest?" 

Luther  said  he  looked  the  man  full  in  the  face  and  said : 
"  Why,  John,  give  her  my  book.  Fifteen  Years  in  Hell." 
Benson  made  several  trips  to  Texas.  He  assisted  in  the 
local  option  campaign  of  1896  in  Waco,  and  made  several 
general  tours  of  the  state.  His  last  visit  was  in  1899,  the 
year  after  we  moved  to  Dallas.  I  believe  that  the  last  pro- 
hibition speech  he  ever  delievered  was  in  the  Central  Chris- 
tion  Church  at  Dallas  in  April  of  1899.  He  went  home  and 
soon  passed  onto  be  with  God.  I  never  shall  forget  this 
noble  advocate  of  a  holy  cause.  He  was  one  of  the  dearest 
friends  it  has  even  been  my  pleasure  to  know,  and  I  cherish 
his  memory  with  a  grateful  heart. 


o 


XLVIII 
MY  DEBATE  WITH  ROGER  Q.  MIILS 

N  an  August  afternoon  of  1885,  I  received  the  fol- 
lowing telegram  from  my  father-in-law,  A.  D.  Al- 
len, of  Crawford,  Texas : 


"  Come  to  Crawford  on  next  train  to  debate  tomorrow  night  with 
Roger  Q.  Mills  on  prohibition." 

No  telegram  I  ever  received  on  any  political  or  commercial 
question  affected  me  as  did  this  one.  I  was  not  present 
when  David  received  the  challenge  to  go  out  and  meet 
Goliath,  but  I  entered  into  his  feeling  when  this  request 
to  debate  with  Roger  Q.  Mills  came  to  me.  At  that  time 
Mr.  Mills  was  the  most  interesting  figure  in  Texas  politics. 
He  had  been  greatly  honored  by  the  people,  and  was  on 
the  tidal  wave  of  prestige  and  popularity.  The  prohibition 
question  was  being  agitated  from  one  end  of  Texas  to  the 
other,  and  Mr.  Mills  had  taken  the  side  of  the  whiskey  men. 
In  former  years  he  had  been  an  advocate  of  temperance  and 
prohibition.  In  1856  he  was  the  editor  of  The  Prairie  Blade, 
published  at  Corsicana.  It  was  a  very  ardent  and  unflinch- 
ing advocate  of  temperance  and  prohibition.  I  had  in  my 
possession  certain  quotations  from  this  paper.  These  I 
had  filed  away  for  reference,  but  did  not  know  that  I  should 
need  them  so  soon. 

That  night  I  do  not  think  I  slept  a  wink.  I  was  busied 
with  the  ardent  task  of  preparation  for  the  ordeal  of  the 
next  evening.  I  reached  Crawford  about  five  o'clock.  Mr. 
Mills  had  preceded  me.  He  was  stopping  at  the  little  Craw- 
ford hotel.    The  appointment  was  his  and  not  mine,  so  the 

335 


336       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Prohibition  Committee  was  indebted  to  him  for  the  courtesy 
of  a  division  of  time.  I  had  previously  met  Mr.  Mills, 
so  it  was  pleasant  to  renew  our  acquaintance.  He  was  ex- 
ceedingly courteous  to  me,  and  repeated  to  me  what  he  had 
said  to  the  Committee — that  he  was  glad  to  have  the  pleasure 
of  dividing  time  with  me. 

We  began  the  meeting  at  eight  o'clock.  He  spoke  first. 
The  agreement  was  that  he  should  speak  one  hour,  that  I 
should  follow  in  a  speech  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  that 
he  would  then  close  in  a  speech  of  a  half  hour.  The  audi- 
ence met  in  the  largest  hall  in  the  village.  The  house  was 
packed  to  suffocation.  There  was  no  standing  room  any- 
where. Perhaps  never  before  nor  since  has  such  a  large 
audience  assembled  at  Crawford.  When  Mills  arose  to 
speak,  he  was  greeted  with  thunderous  applause.  He  was 
a  popular  man,  highly  esteemed  by  his  personal  friends,  and 
idolized  by  his  political  supporters. 

He  began  his  speech  by  quotations  from  three  distin- 
guished authorities — Thomas  Jefferson,  Horatio  Seymour 
and  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  He  traversed  the  beaten  track  of 
anti-prohibition  declamations.  He  rang  the  changes  on  per- 
sonal liberty,  democracy  and  "  prohibition  won't  prohibit," 
setting  great  store  by  the  quotations  he  made  from  the  three 
statesmen  named.  I,  of  course,  was  unable  to  verify  his 
quotations,  but  I  did  not  call  them  in  question.  His  hour 
speedily  passed.  He  made  a  magnificent  presentation  of 
the  whiskey  side  of  the  prohibition  question,  and  an  ovation 
was  tendered  him  as  he  took  his  seat. 

I  had  taught  at  Crawford,  and  had  married  near  there. 
Most  all  of  those  who  were  present  remembered  me.  It 
had  only  been  seven  years  since  I  had  left  that  community. 
There  was  perhaps  not  a  man  or  woman  present  who  be- 
lieved that  I  would  be  able  to  vanquish  the  anti-prohibition 


L 


DEBATE  WITH  ROGER  Q.  MILLS         337 

giant,  but  I  had  determined  to  give  him  the  best  I  had  in 
my  shop. 

I  opened  my  speech  by  the  statement  that  following  the 
lead  of  Mr.  Mills  in  giving  authorities  on  his  side,  I  would 
quote  from  three  eminent  authorities  on  the  prohibition 
side  of  the  question.  My  first  quotation  was  from  the 
Bible,  from  the  book  of  Habakkuk:  "Woe  unto  him  that 
givest  his  neighbor  drink,  that  puttest  thy  bottle  to  him,  and 
makest  him  drunken."  I  enlarged  upon  the  teachings  of 
God's  Word  concerning  the  question  of  tempting  others 
to  do  wrong,  and  particularly  dwelt  upon  the  verse  that  has 
just  been  quoted.  I  next  introduced  the  testimony  of  Wil- 
liam E.  Gladstone,  at  that  time  and  for  many  succeeding 
years  the  foremost  statesman  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
1  quoted  from  him  as  follows :  "  It  is  the  duty  of  govern- 
ment to  make  it  easy  for  the  people  to  do  right  and  hard 
for  the  people  to  do  wrong."  I  spared  no  encomiums  in 
my  treatment  of  these  historic  and  heroic  words  from  the 
great  apostle  of  English  patriotism. 

The  next  authority  I  introduced,  I  heralded  as  one  of  the 
great  men  of  our  time.  I  spoke  of  him  as  one  who  had 
received  the  suffrages  of  his  people,  and  who  step  by  step 
had  been  advanced  to  one  of  the  chief  posts  of  responsibility 
and  power  in  our  nation.  I  referred  to  him  as  the  orator  of 
the  silver  tongue,  as  the  majestic  statesman,  as  the  generous 
and  open-hearted  friend,  and  as  the  masterful  leader  of  a 
great  political  party.  As  impressively  as  I  could,  I  then  read 
the  extracts  from  The  Prairie  Blade,  which  I  deeply  regret 
that  I  cannot  here  present.    After  having  read  these,  I  said : 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  the  quotation  I  have  just  read 
is  from  the  pen  of  Honorable  Roger  Q.  Mills,  of  Texas !  " 

I  have  witnessed  many  outbursts  of  applause  and  enthu- 
siasm, but  the  terrific  vociferations  that  followed  the  read- 


338       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

ing  of  this  extract  and  this  announcement,  I  have  never  seen 
equalled.  Mills  turned  all  sorts  of  colors.  His  chagrin  was 
evident.  He  could  not  sit  still.  He  turned  and  twisted  in 
his  seat.  He  saw  that  the  tables  had  turned.  He,  like  a 
Goliath  fallen,  felt  the  weight  of  the  point  I  had  scored 
against  him.    But  I  was  not  through :    I  added : 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  am  now  about  the  age  that 
Roger  Q.  Mills  was  when  he  penned  the  words  that  I  have 
read  to  you.  At  that  time  he  was  near  to  his  mother  and 
his  God.  His  face  confronted  the  future.  He  looked  out 
from  the  old  home  nest,  and  his  thoughts  were  inspired  by 
the  highest  dictates  of  patriotism  and  religion.  He  is  twice 
my  age  now,  and  even  more.  As  I  stand  before  you,  my 
old  neighbors,  comrades,  students,  patrons  and  friends,  I 
say  to  you  in  all  good  conscience  that  if  I  am  to  live  to  the 
age  which  Mr.  Mills  has  now  attained,  and  if  during  the  on- 
coming of  the  years  I  shall  be  tempted  away  from  the 
principles  I  now  advocate — the  principles  of  righteousness, 
sobriety,  temperance,  peace,  prohibition  and  good  will — I 
pray  that  God  will  strike  me  dead  tonight  on  this  platform, 
so  that  I  may  go  into  His  presence  unsullied  by  the  touch 
of  that  political  ambition  that  would  lead  me  into  devious 
paths,  or  seduced  by  the  jingle  of  the  gold  of  the  brewers 
and  distillers  of  this  nation." 

With  those  words  I  closed.  I  thought  that  the  people 
would  take  the  roof  off.  It  was  many  minutes  before  there 
was  opportunity  for  Mr.  Mills  to  close  the  meeting,  but 
finally  the  applause  subsided,  and  in  a  veritable  rage  he  made 
his  closing  speech.  It  did  not  bristle  with  arguments,  as 
did  his  first  oration ;  it  was  more  a  defense  of  his  personal 
reputation  and  of  explanation  of  the  change  that  had  come 
over  him  since  he  was  editor  of  The  Prairie  Blade.  His 
second  effort  evoked  no  very  great  applause.  The  liquor 
advocates  were  still  in  the  audience,  but  they  were  cowed. 


DEBATE  WITH  ROGER  Q.  MILLS         339 

It  was  thus  the  meeting  closed,  and  I  was  borne  out  of  the 
hall  almost  in  the  very  arms  of  my  prohibition  friends.  I 
was  carried  bodily  to  the  little  hotel  and  the  string  band  of 
the  village,  led  by  Elmon  Armstrong,  treated  me  to  a 
majestic  serenade.  I  had  to  come  out  and  acknowledge  the 
honor  that  was  thus  paid  me,  and  the  evening  wore  on  into 
night,  and  early  morning  had  come  before  the  little  town 
regained  its  normal  quietude. 

In  the  meantime  Mr.  Mills  took  a  night  freight  train  and 
left  for  other  engagements.  Why  this  was  so,  I  never 
knew,  but  the  Prohibitionists  of  Crawford  claimed  then  and 
still  believe  that  he  left  because  of  his  chagrin  at  the  result 
of  the  meeting. 

Looking  back  upon  that  incident,  I  still  record  it  as  the 
greatest  single  achievement  if  its  kind  in  my  entire  career. 
No  one  was  more  surprised  at  the  outcome  of  the  meeting 
than  was  I.  It  was  the  old  story.  David  with  the  sling 
and  the  smooth  stones  from  the  brook,  with  right  and  God 
on  his  side,  can  vanquish  any  giant  that  stands  in  his  way. 
This  was  why  the  young  editor  of  the  The  Gatesville  Ad- 
vance, then  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  was  able  to  rout 
the  great  apostle  of  democracy  and  anti-prohibition. 

The  next  time  I  saw  Roger  Q.  Mills  was  when  I  attended 
the  state-wide  whiskey  convention  in  1887  at  Dallas,  and 
of  which  George  C.  Pendleton,  of  Belton,  was  the  chairman. 
Mills  was  the  chief  orator.  He  saw  me  in  the  audience. 
He  had  it  all  his  own  way.  I  was  perhaps  the  only  Pro- 
hibitionist present.  I  went  up  to  the  meeting  to  report  it 
for  The  Waco  Advance  and  staid  through  it  all.  The  con- 
vocation was  so  riotous  that  the  lamented  Pendleton  smashed 
a  gold-headed  ebony  cane  all  to  pieces  in  the  effort  to  keep 
the  whiskey  advocates  quiet.  Mills  was  at  his  best.  He 
rode  on  the  whirlwind  of  liquor  enthusiasm,  and  what  he 


I 


340       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

did  to  me  was  a  plenty.  Of  course  it  was  all  done  in  a 
parlimentary  way.  Mills  was  a  man  of  high  ideals,  and 
an  old  time  Southern  gentleman.  He  would  not  stoop  to 
a  mean  trick,  but  he  did  romp  on  me  and  all  of  my  sort 
at  this  so-called  "  True  Blue  "  Convention.  I  was  willing 
for  him  to  have  his  innings,  because  I  was  consoled  in  the 
recollection  of  the  Crawford  meeting  where  things  even- 
tuated wholly  my  way. 


XLIX 
THE  MOVE  TO  WACO 

CHRISTMAS  WEEK  of  1886  we  packed  our  simple 
belongings,  loaded  them  in  a  box-car  and  bade  fare- 
well to  the  sights  and  scenes  of  dear  old  Gatesville, 
where  we  had  spent  four  and  a  half  eventful  years.  I  look 
back  upon  them  now  with  joy,  because  during  that  period 
I  was  passing  through  a  discipline  that  was  fitting  me  for 
the  ordeals  that  were  yet  to  come.  We  reached  Waco  Dec. 
2J,  1886 — the  day  that  B.  H.  Carroll  was  43. 

Not  the  least  of  the  influences  that  caused  me  to  move  to 
Waco  was  his  presence  there.  I  counted  it  one  of  the  most 
gracious  privileges  that  ever  came  into  my  life  to  hear  him 
preach  and  to  study  with  him  the  Word  of  God.  On  going 
to  Waco,  we  at  once  put  our  letters  in  the  grand  old  First 
Church,  of  which  my  wife  and  I  were  members  until  almost 
twelve  years  after,  when  we  asked  for  our  .letters  in  order 
that  we  might  join  the  First  Church  at  Dallas. 

Things  along  prohibition  lines  were  livening  up.  The 
Legislature  met  in  January,  1887,  and  one  of  the  first  ques- 
tions to  be  discussed  was  that  of  the  submission  of  a  pro- 
hibition amendment  to  the  Constitution.  The  fight  was 
neither  a  long  one  nor  a  hard  one.  During  the  time  I  jour- 
neyed to  Austin  on  the  invitation  of  some  friends,  and  ad- 
dressed the  Legislature  in  behalf  of  submission.  This  ob- 
ject was  accomplished  with  a  great  deal  more  ease  than 
any  of  us  had  hoped,  and  immediately  thereafter  the  hottest 
and  most  eventful  political  campaign  ever  up  to  that  time 
fought  in  Texas  was  precipitated. 

341 


342       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

The  Waco  Advance  was  a  very  great  improvement  over 
The  Gatesville  Advance-Sun.  It  was  more  perfect  mechani- 
cally, and  in  every  way  a  more  presentable  and  influential 
journal. 

During  my  residence  at  Gatesville,  I  became  very  active 
in  the  councils  of  the  Texas  Press  Association,  having  been 
elected  twice  consecutively  to  the  position  of  secretary.  It 
was  thus,  and  through  The  Gatesville  Advance-Sun,  that  I 
had  made  many  acquaintances  among  the  editors  of  the 
State.  They  were  very  kind  in  their  notices  of  our  removal, 
and  by  common  consent  The  Waco  Advance  was  at  once 
accorded  the  post  of  journalistic  leader  in  the  State-wide 
prohibition  campaign. 

The  Prohibition  Amendment  State  Convention  was  held 
in  Waco  in  March.  It  was  a  historic  gathering.  There 
were  giants  in  those  days.  When  such  men  as  B.  H.  Carroll, 
W.  S.  Herndon,  Dudley  G.  Wooten,  Thomas  R.  Bonner, 
R.  C.  Burleson,  M.  V.  Smith  and  R.  B.  Parrott  joined  hands 
in  behalf  of  any  cause,  it  made  history. 

At  that  convention,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  was 
selected  as  the  man  to  take  the  collection.  I  had  never  done 
any  of  this  kind  of  work  before.  I  had  achieved  some  dis- 
tinction on  the  platform  as  an  advocate  of  the  prohibition 
cause.  I  had  participated  in  local  option  campaigns  in  a 
number  of  the  counties  of  the  State,  notably  in  Bell,  Lime- 
stone and  McLennan,  but  I  had  never  at  any  time  attempted 
to  raise  money.  They  accorded  me  the  best  hour  of  the 
Convention  for  this  collection.  I  was  on  my  feet  two  mor- 
tal hours,  and  when  all  the  returns  were  in,  it  was  found 
that  we  had  raised  in  cash  and  pledges  $15,000.  It  was 
counted  a  wonderful  augury  of  our  strength  and  high  pur- 
pose and  of  our  success  in  the  campaign.  Such  men  as 
H.  G.  Damon,  of  Corsicana,  and  W.  B.  Ward,  of  Jeflferson, 
struggled  to  the  floor  to  give  $500  each.    M.  V.  Smith,  pas- 


THE  MOVE  TO  WACO  343 

tor  of  the  Baptist  Church  at  Belton,  had  been  the  one  who 
suggested  me  for  the  position  of  money  raiser. 

Following  the  Convention,  the  State  Campaign  Commit- 
tee was  organized,  with  B.  H.  Carroll  as  Chairman  and  R.  B. 
Parrott  as  Secretary.  This  was  a  strong  team.  Dr.  Carroll 
was  in  the  zenith  of  his  power,  and  Colonel  Parrott  was  a 
magnificent  organizer.  The  circulation  of  The  Waco  Ad- 
vance became  phenomenal.  By  the  first  of  May  it  had 
reached  a  State- wide  subscription  list  of  more  than  20,000. 
Never  in  all  my  journalistic  experience  have  I  witnessed 
such  a  remarkable  growth.  As  the  campaign  progressed 
and  as  The  Advance  subscription  list  enlarged,  my  enthu- 
siasm also  increased  until  by  the  first  of  May  I  felt  that 
there  was  an  imperative  necessity  for  the  establishment  of 
a  daily  paper  to  advocate  our  cause.  There  was  not  an  out- 
and-out  daily  morning  paper  in  Texas  advocating  prohibi- 
tion. The  afternoon  paper  in  Waco,  The  Day,  of  which 
my  old  friend,  A.  R.  McCoUum,  was  editor,  had  come  out 
very  mildly  for  the  amendment,  but  I  felt  that  a  morning 
paper  was  a  necessity.  Acting  upon  this  conviction,  I  es- 
tablished the  Waco  Daily  Advance.  It  achieved  a  splendid 
circulation,  but  it  broke  me  financially. 

During  that  campaign  my  weekly  cleared  $25,000.  The 
daily  lost  $26,000. 

One  of  the  embarrassing  incidents  at  the  close  of  the 
campaign  was  the  rejection  of  a  $10  check  that  I  gave  on 
the  First  National  Bank  to  one  of  my  printers.  The  printer 
cashed  the  check  in  Wilson's  saloon.  That  was  on  Saturday 
night.  Monday  morning  Wilson  presented  it  to  the  First 
National  Bank  and  they  threw  it  out,  writing  on  the  back 
of  the  check,  "  No  funds."  On  account  of  the  kind  recom- 
mendation A.  R.  Williams  had  given  me  to  the  First  Na- 
tional Bank  when  I  came  to  Waco,  I  had  done  all  of  my 
banking  there,  and  had  passed  through  the  bank  some  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  dollars.    They  knew  full  well,  how- 


344       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

ever,  that  I  was  stranded,  and  yet  I  have  never  brought 
myself  to  believe  that  they  gave  me  a  fair  deal,  when,  on 
account  of  an  overdraft  of  $3  or  $4  they  threw  out  this 
check  and  humiliated  me  in  the  presence  of  my  enemies- 

I  went  to  W.  W.  Seley,  president  of  the  Waco  State 
Bank,  and  told  him  the  whole  story.  I  added  that  I  hadn't 
a  dollar  and  did  not  know  that  I  ever  would  have  a  dollar, 
and  yet  I  wanted  to  borrow  $300  to  clean  up  with.  He 
handed  me  a  note  and  said : 

"  Doctor,  if  you  will  get  Homer  Wells  or  F.  L.  Carroll 
to  sign  this  note  with  you,  I  will  let  you  have  the  money." 

I  handed  the  note  back  to  him  with  this  remark: 

"  Mr.  Seley,  I  have  never  asked  anybody  to  endorse  my 
note  and  never  will.  If  I  am  not  good  for  the  $300,  I  will 
have  to  suffer  on  and  do  without  it." 

There  was  something  in  my  tone  and  bearing  that  im- 
pressed Mr.  Seley,  so  he  turned  to  his  desk,  made  out  an- 
other note  and  asked  me  to  sign  it.  He  then  passed  the 
$300  to  my  credit.  That  was  the  beginning  of  my  connec- 
tion with  the  Waco  State  Bank.  Subsequently  the  cashier 
of  the  First  National  Bank  and  Mr.  Seley  locked  horns  in 
four  separate  municipal  campaigns  for  the  office  of  City 
Treasurer.  I  threw  the  strength  of  my  influence  for  Mr. 
Seley,  and  if  I  do  say  it  myself,  I  was  able  to  reward  him 
for  the  confidence  he  had  reposed  in  me  in  a  time  of  dire 
necessity.  I  know  that  in  two  of  those  elections  my  in- 
fluence turned  the  scale  in  his  favor,  and  on  this  account  I 
always  rejoice  over  it.  From  that  day  until  this,  W.  W- 
Seley  has  been  my  friend.  He  was  one  of  the  most  con- 
siderate bankers  with  whom  I  have  ever  done  business,  and 
while  he  was  not  a  Baptist  nor  a  Prohibitionist,  he  was  one 
of  the  truest  and  most  loyal  friends  it  has  ever  been  mine 
to  know.  The  night  is  never  too  dark,  nor  the  clouds  too 
lowering,  for  me  to  get  up  to  do  him  a  kindness. 

In  the  prohibition  campaign  our  first  great  need  was 


THE  MOVE  TO  WACO  346 

funds,  and  while  we  had  inaugurated  our  fight  with 
some  means  at  our  command,  we  knew  that  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars  were  being  poured  into  Texas  by  the 
brewers,  distillers  and  liquor  dealers,  and  that  in  order  to 
cope  with  this  gigantic  corruption  fund  we  would  have  to 
secure  assistance  from  outside  sources.  The  committee 
therefore  selected  me  to  go  North  and  East  in  search  of 
help.  I  left  the  middle  of  June  and  was  absent  three 
weeks.  My  first  objective  point  was  Lake  Bluff,  Illinois, 
just  a  little  way  above  Chicago,  where  the  Lake  Bluff  Prohi- 
bition Conference  was  in  session.  I  knew  that  I  would  meet 
there  the  heroes  of  the  prohibition  cause  in  America.  When 
I  arrived  I  found  that  Frances  E.  Willard,  John  B. 
Finch  and  John  Sobieski  were  all  there,  and  that  was  the 
first  time  that  I  met  little  Anna  Gordon,  Miss  Willard's 
private  secretary,  and  Mrs.  Beauchamp,  the  beautiful  Ken- 
tuckian  who  was  president  of  the  Kentucky  W.  C.  T.  U. 
Miss  Willard  was  the  leading  spirit  of  the  Lake  Bluff  meet- 
ing. When  she  found  that  I  was  there  and  learned  of  my 
mission,  she  set  apart  one  evening  and  asked  me  to  address 
the  convention.  It  was  a  remarkable  occasion.  In  the 
best  way  that  I  knew,  I  stated  the  Texas  conditions  and 
needs-  There  was  a  response  such  as  I  have  seldom  wit- 
nessed. Men  literally  fell  over  each  other  to  give  money. 
These  were  not  large  sums,  but  they  represented  the  out- 
gushings  of  generous  hearts  who  longed  to  help  us  make 
Texas  free.  The  introduction  Miss  Willard  gave  me  was 
done  in  her  sweetest  and  most  winsome  way,  and  she  was 
one  of  the  most  eloquent  orators  it  has  ever  been  my  pleas- 
ure to  hear.  She  had  a  tongue  of  silver  and  a  heart  of 
gold.  Through  all  the  years  that  she  lived,  she  was  my 
friend,  and  a  remark  she  made  in  the  National  Prohibition 
Convention  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  in  1892,  was  probably,  as 
much  as  any  other  single  incident,  responsible  for  my  nomi- 


346       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

nation  in  that  Convention  for  the  Vice-Presidency  of  the 
United  States. 

John  B.  Finch,  at  that  time  leader  in  the  Independent 
Order  of  Good  Templars  and  Chairman  of  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  National  Prohibition  party,  gave  me  let- 
ters to  leading  Prohibitionists  in  the  East  and  advised  me 
to  push  on  to  Boston,  where  a  Convention  of  the  Sons  of 
Temperance  was  soon  to  assemble.  Following  his  sugges- 
tion, I  hastened  on  to  New  York  City,  arriving  there  on  a 
Sunday  night.  I  never  felt  more  lonely  than  I  did  when  I 
wrote  my  name  on  the  register  of  the  Grand  Hotel.  I  set 
out  to  find  a  church.  I  saw  an  illuminated  hand  pointing 
in  a  certain  direction  and  on  the  hand  these  words,  "  Church 
of  the  Strangers."  I  followed  the  suggestion  and  soon 
found  myself  looking  up  into  the  face  of  Dr.  Charles  F. 
Deems.  It  was  the  only  time  I  ever  had  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  him  preach,  but  I  remember  the  sermon  as  well  as 
if  I  had  heard  it  yesterday.  When  the  collection  baskets 
were  passed,  I  was  amazed  to  see  every  one  giving  some- 
thing. I  thought  they  were  the  most  liberal  people  I  had 
ever  seen  in  my  life,  but  when  the  baskets  came  on  back 
to  me  and  I  was  fixing  to  drop  in  my  quarter,  I  found  that 
the  others  had  all  given  pennies,  so  it  dampened  my  ardor 
some,  but  the  unanimity  with  which  they  gave  compensated 
in  a  large  measure  for  the  smallness  of  their  contributions. 

From  New  York  I  went  by  boat  to  Fall  River,  and  by 
rail  on  to  Boston.  Reaching  there,  I  found  the  Sons  of 
Temperance  in  session.  The  letters  from  John  B.  Finch 
were  a  sufficient  introduction.  These  great  old  temperance 
heroes  were  rejoiced  to  have  me  with  them,  and  tendered 
me  the  best  hour  of  the  best  day  to  present  the  prohibition 
work  of  Texas.  They  were  eager  listeners.  It  was  an  un- 
usual thing  for  a  Texan  to  address  them  on  any  subject 
The  meeting  was  held  in  Tremont  Temple,  so  long  the 
throne  of  power  of  the  lamented  George  C.  Lorimer.    Fol- 


THE  MOVE  TO  WACO  347 

lowing  my  address,  they  gave  me  quite  liberally  of  their 
means  for  the  Texas  cause.  I  received  no  colossal  contri- 
bution, but  there  were  many  small  gifts  from  the  delegates 
present,  and  the  interest  manifested  in  the  Texas  prohibi- 
tion work  was  good  to  see. 

I  reached  Waco  after  an  uneventful  journey,  to  find  that 
the  campaign  had  become  red  hot.  The  memorable  debate 
between  B.  H.  Carroll  and  Roger  Q.  Mills  had  occurred  in 
my  absence.  W.  S.  Herndon,  Dudley  G.  Wooten,  Thomas 
R.  Bonner,  B.  H.  Carroll  and  others  of  our  great  workers 
were  constantly  on  the  field,  and  it  seemed  as  though  the 
prohibition  cause  was  bound  to  win. 

One  of  the  great  meetings  was  held  at  Waco.  At  that 
meeting  Dudley  G.  Wooten  and  W.  S.  Herndon  were  the 
speakers.  Wooten's  throat  gave  out  before  he  had  spoken 
thirty  minutes,  and  he  had  to  leave  the  platform.  W.  S. 
Herndon  followed  in  a  three-hours  speech,  which,  all  things 
considered,  was  one  of  the  greatest  orations  it  has  ever  been 
my  pleasure  to  hear.  The  occasion  was  auspicious  in  every 
way.  There  was  a  tremendous  crowd  present  of  the  flower 
of  Texas  manhood  and  womanhood.  We  had  reached  that 
stage  in  the  campaign  when  all  sides  were  on  the  qui  vive 
for  new  material.  Herndon  brought  it  to  us  in  plenty.  He 
heartened  the  Prohibitionists  and  discouraged  the  liquor 
men. 

I  continued  my  work  as  editor  of  the  daily  and  weekly 
Advance,  and  as  an  active  exponent  of  the  prohibition  cause 
on  the  field.  During  the  campaign  I  had  a  number  of  joint 
debates.  I  recall  two  of  these.  One  was  with  Captain 
M.  D.  Herring,  of  Waco,  at  Whitehall,  in  McLennan  Coun- 
ty, and  the  other  with  a  Belton  lawyer  by  the  name  of 
Scales.  The  latter  debate  was  held  at  Bartlett  in  William- 
son County. 

Our  campaign  was  so  handsomely  managed  that  we  de- 
served to  succeed.     Not  only  was  this  true,  but  we  repre- 


348       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL^S  CHRONICLE 

sented  the  right  side,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  in- 
trigues of  the  liquor  men  and  the  frauds  perpetrated  in  so 
many  ways,  I  believe  we  would  have  won.  That  was  before 
the  days  of  the  Australian  ballot  system-  Everything  in 
elections  was  run  wide  open.  The  liquor  forces  brought 
Mexicans  by  the  thousands  from  across  the  Rio  Grande, 
Indians  from  across  Red  River,  and  dressed  many  Negro 
women  in  Negro  men's  clothes  and  voted  them  for  whiskey. 

There  is  no  diabolical  device  that  the  liquor  men  will  not 
utilize  if  it  will  achieve  their  object.  This  is  true  from  the 
very  highest  man  in  their  ranks  on  down  to  the  saloon  por- 
ter and  slugger.  The  whole  business,  root  and  branch,  is 
absolutely  devoid  of  conscience  or  consideration  for  the 
principles  of  righteousness. 

Threats  were  made  that  prohibition  speakers  would  not 
be  allowed  to  fill  their  engagements  at  San  Antonio  and  in 
other  portions  of  the  State,  and  when  Dr.  B.  H.  Carroll 
went  to  San  Antonio  he  had  to  speak  on  the  military  reser- 
vation under  the  protection  of  the  American  flag.  Some  of 
our  speakers  had  been  grossly  maltreated  in  San  Antonio, 
but  Dr.  Carroll  stood  his  ground  and  won  a  great  moral  vic- 
tory, though,  of  course,  when  election  day  came,  San  An- 
tonio voted  almost  solidly  for  the  liquor  traffic.  I  believe 
there  were  many  hundreds  of  prohibition  votes  there  that 
were  never  counted.  It  is  the  plan  of  the  liquor  forces  not 
only  to  count  thousands  of  fraudulent  votes  for  themselves, 
but  to  count  out  the  votes  of  the  temperance  men  registered 
against  them. 

The  election  was  held  August  4.  On  the  face  of  the  re- 
turns, Prohibition  lost  by  a  majority  of  92,000.  This  seems 
tremendous,  and  yet,  if  the  fraudulent  votes  had  been  elim- 
inated, I  doubt  not  that  the  prohibition  forces  either  won 
their  fight  or  came  very  close  to  victory. 

To  me  one  of  the  memorable  incidents  of  the  campaign 
was  the  presence  on  every  train  on  which  I  traveled  of  a 


THE  MOVE  TO  WACO  349 

long,  lank,  lean,  cadaverous  man,  who  was  as  silent  as  the 
Sphinx.  When  I  would  get  on  the  train  at  Waco,  he  would 
get  on  with  me  and  go  in  the  same  coach.  When  I  would 
change  cars,  he  would  change  cars.  When  I  would  get  out 
of  the  car  at  any  destination,  he  would  get  out  there.  At 
first  I  paid  no  attention  to  him,  but  finally  his  presence  at- 
tracted my  attention.  Then  I  began  to  watch  him.  Hith- 
erto I  had  not  observed  that  he  was  watching  me,  but  when 
I  began  to  watch  him,  I  noticed  that  every  time  I  would  pick 
up  my  grip  to  get  ofif,  he  would  pick  up  his  grip  after  I 
picked  up  mine.  I  did  not  venture  to  open  any  conversation 
with  him.  but  later  I  learned  that  his  name  was  Waller  and 
that  he  was  a  detective  in  the  employ  of  the  whiskey  crowd 
to  shadow  me.  That  was  one  of  the  many  tactics  of  the 
liquor  forces.  Happily  I  behaved  well  through  the  entire 
campaign,  and  nothing  was  found  that  the  liquor  men  could 
take  hold  of  to  do  the  cause  an  injury. 


L 

FOREGLEAMS  OF  A  NEW  CAREER 

WITH  the  defeat  of  the  Prohibition  amendment,  the 
Waco  Daily  Advance  turned  up  its  little  pink 
toes  and  quietly  expired.  The  weekly  was  still 
maintained,  but  if  it  had  been  properly  spelled  it  would 
have  been  "  weakly,"  for  I  was  dead  broke,  and  the  pro- 
hibition wave  had  spent  its  force.  Many  of  its  erstwhile 
friends  forsook  the  flag,  and  many  others  who  still  main- 
tained the  principle  felt  that  we  had  suffered  irreparable 
defeat.  However,  there  were  a  few  of  us  who  went  on 
with  the  work.  The  Advance  kept  up  the  agitation  as  vig- 
orously as  it  could  under  the  discouraging  conditions  that 
confronted  us.  The  liquor  men,  always  insolent,  became 
more  so  as  the  days  passed  by.  Their  organs,  many  of 
which  had  fattened  on  the  proceeds  of  the  campaign,  be- 
came more  blatant,  while  the  prohibition  politicians,  many 
of  whom  had  hoped  to  be  swept  into  office  by  the  results 
of  the  campaign,  ran  to  cover  and  shed  the  habiliments  of 
political  purity  and  sobriety  to  don  the  old-time  beer-stained 
Democratic  garments. 

But  The  Waco  Advance  went  on.  So  did  I.  But  we 
went  on  very  slowly.  We  also  went  on  very  hungrily.  The 
subscription  list  of  The  Advance,  which  had  run  into  scores 
of  thousands  during  the  campaign,  shrank  down  into  hun- 
dreds. We  might  have  very  consistently  chanted  that  old 
poem  which  ran  so  solemnly  in  the  old  time  McGuffey's 
reader,  entitled,  "  The  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore."  If  Sir 
John  had  been  the  prohibition  movement,  he  was  most  cer- 

350 


FOREGLEAMS  OF  A  NEW  CAREER   351 

tainly  buried,  and  many  of  his  former  friends,  who  thrilled 
great  and  expectant  audiences  with  their  eloquence,  were 
now  pensively  silent  as  the  liquor  procession  moved  on- 

The  night  of  the  election,  when  the  returns  which  poured 
in  from  all  parts  of  the  State  showed  that  the  amendment 
had  suffered  an  overwhelming  defeat,  the  liquor  men  be- 
came very  boisterous  in  Waco.  Threats  were  particularly 
made  against  me.  Word  was  sent  down  that  I  was  to  be 
tarred  and  feathered  and  ridden  on  a  rail.  I  had  never  en- 
gaged in  a  pastime  of  this  sort  in  which  I  was  the  chief 
mourner,  so  I  decided  that  I  would  demur  to  the  soft  im- 
peachment of  my  political  persecutors.  The  sheriff  of  the 
county,  Dan  Ford,  who  afterwards  married  my  wife's  sis- 
ter, and  who  was  at  that  time  quite  deeply  in  love  with  her, 
was  my  good  friend.  He  came  down  and  authorized  all  of 
ns  to  brighten  up  our  shooting  irons  so  that  we  would  be 
ready  to  defend  ourselves  against  any  onslaught.  On  his 
own  motion,  he  spent  the  night  with  us.  There  were  two 
or  three  of  the  printer  boys  with  us,  as  in  the  olden  days 
at  Gatesville,  and  things  began  to  look  quite  Coryell  Coun- 
tyish.  We  were  really  not  afraid,  but  at  the  same  time  I 
gratefully  remember  the  kindness  of  Dan  Ford  on  that 
eventful  night.  I  was  bluer  than  forty  varieties  of  indigo, 
the  fact  being  that  I  had  already  discussed  with  my  wife 
the  prospects  of  taking  a  new  start  in  life  on  the  Pacific 
Coast.  I  felt  very  much  like  folding  my  tent,  if  I  could  get 
tip  steam  enough  to  achieve  a  physical  feat  of  that  sort,  and 
silently  abandoning  my  native  State  forever. 

I  realize  now  that  all  of  this  was  foolish,  but  we  are  but 
grown-up  children  after  all.  (I  think,  though  I  may  be 
mistaken,  that  I  have  seen  an  expression  of  this  sort  in  some 
homily  that  I  have  read  as  I  have  journeyed  along  through 
life.)  For  days  and  days  this  feeling  that  California  was 
the  place  for  me  clung  to  me,  but  as  we  slowly  resumed  the 
normal  status  of  life,  I  took  my  belt  up  another  hole  and 


352       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

decided  to  keep  up  the  fight  against  the  liquor  traffic  as  long 
as  mortal  life  remained,  and  to  stay  in  Texas. 

It  was  thus  Thee  Waco  Advance  went  on  and  that  I  went 
on.  The  Prohibition  party  contingent  in  the  State,  which 
had  shown  such  hopeful  strength  in  the  election  of  1886,  was 
also  greatly  discouraged,  though  less  discouraged  than  the 
Democratic  Prohibitionists.  The  political  Prohibitionists, 
having  had  no  hopes  of  office,  did  not  feel  so  keenly  the  dis- 
astrous defeat  as  did  the  Democrats,  many  of  whom  had  felt 
that  there  was  a  chance  for  political  recognition  at  the  pie 
counter  through  the  success  of  the  prohibition  movement. 
AVe  kept  up  the  Prohibition  political  party  in  Texas  and  held 
our  convention  in  1888  as  of  yore,  nominating  a  full  State 
ticket.  The  Waco  Advance  became  leaner  and  leaner.  It 
became  so  thin  that  it  reminded  me  of  the  story  of  Hamilton 
Stuart,  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made-  When 
it  was  at  its  worst,  though  still  alive,  I  had  a  visit  from  my 
prohibition  friend,  W.  D.  Knowles,  of  Dallas,  who,  with 
his  son-in-law,  C.  W.  Harned,  had  at  that  time  a  small  Pro- 
hibition party  weekly  at  Dallas,  and  they  desired  to  consoli- 
date with  The  Advance.  I  was  not  in  position  at  that  time 
to  move  from  Waco,  so  after  some  simple  negotiations  I 
sold  to  Mr.  Knowles  The  Waco  Advance,  lock,  stock  and 
barrel,  subscription  list,  and  good  will  for  $500  cash.  I 
owned  some  type  and  material  for  making  up  the  paper.  I 
did  not  fling  this  in  with  the  deal,  but  simply  sold  the  good 
will  of  The  Advance.  This  trade  was  made  in  July,  1888, 
nearly  a  year  after  the  prohibition  amendment  had  met 
defeat. 

It  was  thus  that  for  the  first  time  I  found  myself  out  of 
employment.  It  was  a  strange  sensation.  At  15  my  father 
had  set  me  to  work  for  myself  and  I  was  now  almost  30.  I 
felt  it  a  good  time  for  a  vacation,  so  I  took  my  wife  and 
little  ones,  and  after  having  secured  railroad  passes,  (those 
were  the  glorious  days  of  annuals,  mileage  books,  trip  passes 


FOREGLEAMS  OF  A  NEW  CAREER       353 

and  half  fare  on  the  Pullman  car  for  editors)  we  fared 
forth  for  Denver,  Colorado,  to  attend  the  National  Edito- 
rial Association,  to  which  I  was  a  delegate.  It  was  a  gor- 
geous trip.  We  had  never  been  in  Colorado,  and  we  found 
the  climate,  as  it  has  been  found  by  thousands  of  other  pil- 
grims from  Texas  and  elsewhere,  ideally  cool  and  pleasant. 

But  arriving  in  Denver,  I  did  not  hide  my  light  under  a 
bushel.  My  fame  as  a  prohibition  worker  had  preceded  me- 
Out  Denver  way  was  my  friend,  John  Hipp,  whom  I  had 
met  at  the  National  Prohibition  Convention  in  May.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  Prohibition  National  Committee  and 
had  known  of  my  work  in  Texas,  not  only  as  a  Prohibition 
party  man,  but  as  an  advocate  of  the  prohibition  amend- 
ment. As  soon  as  I  reached  Denver,  I  was  besieged  from 
every  direction  to  enter  upon  prohibition  work.  But  first  of 
all  we  must  attend  the  National  Editorial  Association. 

As  soon  as  the  Editorial  Association  had  finished  its  ses- 
sions, I  yielded  to  the  importunities  of  the  Prohibitionists 
of  Colorado  and,  leaving  my  wife  and  children  in  Denver, 
I  began  a  lecture  tour  of  the  State.  I  was  tendered  a  pass 
over  all  the  railway  lines  of  Colorado  and  it  was  thus  that  I 
made  a  most  pleasant  lecture  tour  of  the  entire  State.  I  was 
told  by  the  chairman  of  the  State  Committee  that  all  of  the 
collections  would  be  mine.  I  reported  every  penny  I  re- 
ceived, but  it  was  in  turn  given  to  me  for  my  services. 

I  suffered  one  excruciating  embarrassment  on  this  tour. 
When  I  spoke  at  the  little  town  of  Golden,  I  noticed  in  the 
audience  a  very  attentive  listener.  He  hung  upon  my  words 
as  if  I  were  inspired.  His  lower  jaw  fell,  his  eyes  opened 
wide,  his  ears  seemed  to  stand  out  to  catch  every  vibration 
of  my  voice,  and  his  face  showed  an  interest  and  animation 
that  is  an  inspiration  to  any  speaker.  After  the  lecture  was 
over  and  I  had  safely  housed  the  collection  in  my  trousers 
pocket,  this  auditor  came  up  and  introduced  himself  to  me. 


354       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

complimenting  me  very  highly,  and  I  naturally  felt  that 
he  was  a  man  of  judicious  and  judicial  temper. 

I  moved  on  next  day  to  a  point  some  fifty  miles  up  the 
road  to  meet  another  engagement.  The  audience  was  larger 
than  the  evening  before.  To  my  surprise,  I  saw  this  same 
enthusiastic  friend  on  the  front  seat  again.  Now,  patient 
reader,  I  will  have  to  reveal  a  secret  here.  I  had  several 
prohibition  speeches  in  my  armamentarium,  but  I  did  not 
see  the  necessity  of  preparing  a  new  speech  for  every  new 
audience,  since  I  was  to  speak  to  each  separate  audience  but 
one  time,  so  on  that  second  evening  I  perpetrated  the  same 
jokes  and  repeated  the  same  grandiloquent  apostrophes  that 
had  so  charmed  the  audience  of  the  night  before.  My  pa- 
tient confrere,  who  had  followed  me  to  this  engagement, 
was  just  as  much  overjoyed  at  hearing  this  address  the  sec- 
ond time  as  he  was  the  first  time,  and  he  so  said. 

The  next  ni^ht  he  was  with  me  again,  and  he  followed 
me  for  five  mortal  nights,  listening  to  me  every  night  as  I 
wandered  through  the  mazes  of  practically  the  same  speech. 
I  thought  that  by  the  third  dose  he  would  have  died,  but 
instead  of  succumbing  to  the  infliction,  he  seemed  to  fatten 
on  it,  so  when  I  last  saw  him,  after  having  ding-donged  this 
speech  into  his  ears  five  times,  he  departed  with  a  glow  of 
joy  and  satisfaction  on  his  face  that  I  have  scarcely  ever 
seen  duplicated  anywhere.  I  wish  I  could  remember  his 
name.  He  was  a  jewel.  H  in  my  journey  through  life,  I 
had  found  many  such  admirers  as  was  he,  I  would  have  had 
a  much  easier  time.  I  didn't  try,  but  I  believe  I  could  have 
borrowed  thirty  cents  from  him  without  any  trouble  in  the 
world.  I  would  have  done  it,  but  the  collections  were  show- 
ing up  well,  and  happily  I  was  not  in  immediate  need  of 
funds,  though  that  had  for  the  past  several  months  been  my 
normal  condition. 

At  the  close  of  the  Colorado  trip,  after  I  had  spoken  for 
some  four  weeks  in  the  State  and  filled  many  engagements, 


FOREGLEAMS  OF  A  NEW  CAREER       355 

the  time  came  for  us  to  depart  for  Texas.  On  taking  an  in- 
voice of  my  financial  condition,  I  found  that  I  had  much 
more  money  than  I  had  when  I  started  from  Waco,  in  addi- 
tion to  sufficient  extra  funds  to  pay  our  expenses  home.  My 
last  address  was  at  Canyon  City  at  the  foot  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  My  next  appointment  was  at  Leadville,  but 
the  high  altitude  had  begun  to  tell  upon  my  nerves.  Lead- 
ville is  one  of  the  highest  points  in  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  after  having  spoken  at  Canyon  City,  I  found  myself 
quite  exhausted,  and  for  this  reason  I  wired  a  cancellation 
of  my  Leadville  engagement,  which  really  I  have  always 
regretted,  because  I  would  have  been  glad  to  see  that  his- 
toric town. 

At  Canyon  City  a  remarkable  thing  happened.  I  -spoke 
out  in  front  of  the  Canyon  City  hotel  to  an  immense  audi- 
ence. That  is  one  of  the  beauties  of  Colorado.  The  sum- 
mer nights  are  so  bland,  clear,  crisp  and  cool  and  the  air 
so  bracing  that  outdoor  meetings  are  far  more  pleasant 
than  to  have  the  convocation  indoors.  When  the  hats  were 
passed  that  night,  some  excellent  man  perpetrated  what  I, 
as  an  old  time  newspaper  man,  would  characterize  as  a 
typographical  error.  He  dropped  a  twenty  dollar  gold  piece 
in  the  hat.  That  swelled  that  collection  to  proportions  far 
beyond  that  taken  at  any  other  point.  I  have  always  felt 
a  little  conscience-stricken  about  this  twenty  dollar  gold 
piece,  because  in  my  inmost  soul  I  felt  that  the  man  meant 
to  drop  in  a  half  dollar.  I  did  not,  however,  count  the  collec- 
tion until  I  had  reached  my  room,  and  there  was  the  twenty 
dollar  gold  piece  mixed  all  up  with  the  pennies,  nickels, 
dimes,  quarters,  etc.  It  looked  good.  I  did  not  know  who  had 
given  it,  and  meantime  the  audience  had  dispersed,  so  there 
was  no  way  in  the  world  by  which  I  could  reach  the  donor, 
and  with  that  egotism  which  should  characterize  men  who,  as 
the  Frenchman  says,  "go  on  the  scaffold  and  lecture,"  I 
felicitated  myself  that  some  patriot  had  really  believed  my 


356       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

speech  was  worth  twenty  dollars.  That  had  been  my  pri- 
vate opinion,  but  of  course  I  only  put  it  in  here  because 
this  autobiography  is  not  intended  for  more  than  interna- 
tional circulation. 


Dr.  John  O.  McRkynolds. 


LI 
THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  GREAT  AFFLICTION 

I  HASTENED  back  from  Canyon  City  to  Denver,  gath- 
ered up  our  little  belongings,  and  we  journeyed  back 
to  the  Texas  summer  land  in  the  last  days  of  August. 
On  the  way  home,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  felt  a 
peculiar  sensation  in  my  right  eye.  An  eye-lash  seemed  to 
have  by  some  means  turned  in  upon  the  eyeball  and  was 
thus  giving  me  intense  pain.  There  was  no  physician  on 
the  train,  and  although  I  had  my  wife  look  at  the  eye,  she 
was  not  able  to  find  the  troublesome  eye-lash.  The  dif- 
ficulty grew  worse  as  we  approached  Waco,  and  as  soon  as 
I  was  able  to  consult  Dr.  King,  our  family  physician,  he 
took  a  look  at  my  eyes  and  with  an  expression  of  horror, 
he  said,  "  Dr.  Cranfill,  you  have  granulated  eye-lids !  " 

That  was  the  beginning.  It  has  had  no  end.  It  has  been 
now  over  twenty-seven  years  since  this  discovery  was 
made,  and  I  have  through  all  these  years  been  a  sufferer 
from  the  worst  eye  affliction  known  to  any  age  or  clime.  I 
do  not  mean  that  this  is  a  worse  affliction  than  paralysis  of 
the  optic  nerve  nor  than  some  forms  of  cataract,  but  when 
the  number  of  its  victims  is  considered,  trachoma,  or  gran- 
ulated eye-lids,  is  the  giant  eye-scourge  of  the  world. 

I  began  by  seeking  the  advice  of  specialists  and  now, 
after  twenty-seven  years  of  suffering,  and  after  having 
lost  so  much  out  of  my  life,  I  can  say  with  the  woman  in 
the  Gospel  of  Luke,  I  have  '*  suffered  many  things  at  the 
hands  of  many  physicians."  Per  contra,  I  have  had  great 
help  from  many  physicians.    The  really  well  equipped  and 

357 


858       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

capable  eye  specialist  is  very  rare.  When  you  find  one, 
treasure  him  and  love  him.  There  are  some  men  who  claim 
to  know  how  to  cure  eye  trouble  who  mean  well,  but  they 
are  innocent  of  ability  to  properly  cope  with  the  difficulty. 
Naturally  fond  of  books,  living,  moving,  breathing  and 
having  my  being  in  literature,  I  found  this  affliction  the 
greatest,  it  seems  to  me,  that  could  possibly  becloud  my 
life.  Since  that  summer  day  twenty-seven  years  ago,  I 
have  suffered  ten  thousand  deaths  with  the  pain  of  this 
malady,  accompanied  as  it  is  with  oft  recurring  spells  of 
corneal  ulceration,  and  in  addition  thereto,  the  deprivation 
I  have  suffered  on  account  of  my  inability  to  read  at  night 
or  to  read  long  at  a  time,  even  at  my  best,  has  been  enough, 
it  seems  to  me,  to  break  the  spirit  of  any  pessimistic  man. 

This  affliction  has  deprived  me  of  the  pleasure  and  the 
profit  of  foreign  travel.  I  cannot  be  long  away  from  a 
competent  eye  specialist,  for  very  often  both  of  my  eyes 
have  to  be  operated  upon.  This  operation  is  very  simple 
and  is  done  without  an  anesthetic  of  any  kind-  At  first  the 
oculist  used  cocaine,  but  I  do  not  like  cocaine  in  the  eye, 
so  he  turns  up  the  eye-lids  and  scarifies  the  lid  with  a  very 
sharp  knife  three  to  six  times  a  week.  This  has  to  be  done, 
or  the  lid  trouble  becomes  so  malignant  that  the  corneal 
ulcers  recur.  Foreign  travel  would  involve  separation  from 
the  oculist  for  many  months  at  a  time  and — blindness. 

In  this  connection  I  take  pleasure  in  testifying  to  the 
help  I  have  had  from  three  great  oculists.  The  first  of  these 
was  Dr.  R.  H.  Chilton.  I  lived  in  Waco  and  he  lived  in 
Dallas,  so  in  the  winter  of  1892-93  I  came  to  Dallas  for 
treatment,  after  the  sainted  M.  V.  Smith  and  I  had  started 
The  Baptist  Standard.  I  boarded  at  that  time  with  my 
dear  friend.  Dr.  H.  A.  Moseley,  and  his  cherished  wife 
now  in  Heaven,  Mrs.  Kittie  Moseley.  It  was  there  that  I 
met  Miss  Hattie  Belle  Moseley  and  all  the  Moseley  family, 
who,  through  all  the  intervening  years,  have  been  counted 


Dr.  Dero  E.  Seay. 


ANOTHER  GREAT  AFFLICTION  359 

among  my  very  dearest  friends.  For  a  while,  during  that 
period  of  my  stay  in  Dallas,  I  lived  in  the  home  of  A.  M. 
Simms,  pastor  of  the  First  Baptist  Church,  and  while  tak- 
ing my  meals  in  Brother  Simms'  home,  I  rented  a  room 
from  Judge  Lewis  and  his  wife. 

But  my  eyes  did  not  get  well-  Dr.  Chilton  helped  them 
much,  and  saved  me  much  suffering.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  they  showed  no  signs  of  permanent  recovery. 
After  Dr.  Chilton's  death,  I  sought  the  help  of  Dr.  John 
O.  McReynolds  and  Dr.  Dero  E.  Seay.  I  have  been  under 
their  care  now  for  eighteen  years.  One  would  naturally 
ask  why,  if  they  are  such  splendid  oculists,  I  have  not  been 
cured.  My  answer  is  that  being  such  splendid  oculists  as 
they  are,  I  am  not  now  blind.  When  I  first  went  to  Dr. 
McReynolds,  I  had  twenty-five  ulcers  circling  the  cornea  of 
my  right  eye.  I  thought  then  I  was  going  to  lose  the  eye, 
but  he  saved  it  and  he  has  been  saving  it  ever  since.  And 
so  has  Dr.  Seay.  And  thus  I  still  can  see,  and  at  intervals 
can  read  a  reasonable  amount  in  daytime. 

Meantime  I  have  been  greatly  helped  by  Dr.  Sleight,  of 
Battle  Creek,  Mich.  Every  time  I  go  to  Battle  Creek  he 
treats  me  while  there,  and  he  is  one  of  the  best  oculists  I 
have  known. 

I  have  been  indiscreet  with  my  eyes  and  have  often  used 
them  when  I  should  not  have  read  at  all.  A  man  of  my 
temperament  and  with  my  love  of  literature  would  almost 
risk  his  life,  not  to  say  anything  about  his  eyes,  in  order  to 
commune  with  the  great  makers  of  our  books  and  periodi- 
cals. But  how  I  have  been  hindered,  how  I  have  suffered, 
how  I  have  longed  to  read  when  I  was  forced  to  sit  silently 
by  the  glowing  embers  of  the  fire,  how  I  have  thirsted  to 
explore  new  and  to  me  impossible  mines  of  knowledge,  no 
human  tongue  can  tell.  God  knows  and  I  know,  but  none 
of  this  could  be  fashioned  into  words. 


360       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

But  not  to  be  guilty  of  complaining  here,  let  me  add  that 
my  hearing  is  perfect,  my  voice  and  all  my  organs  of  speech 
are  absolutely  unimpaired,  and  God  has  blessed  me  with 
an  elastic  and  retentive  memory.  Aside  from  the  memory 
of  the  names  of  people  whom  I  meet,  I  have  been  happy  in 
the  faculty  to  retain  salient  and  important  facts,  and  thus 
I  glean  more  from  the  reading  of  an  incident  or  from  its 
recital  by  another  than  the  average  man. 


LII 
ON  A  NEW  TRAIL 

WHEN  I  returned  to  Waco  from  the  Colorado  trip, 
I  was  out  of  a  job.  I  had  my  little  home  on  the 
corner  of  Sixth  and  Webster  Streets  and  it  was 
paid  for,  but  that  was  all.  I  had  managed  in  closing  up 
the  affairs  of  The  Waco  Advance  to  even  up  with  my  cred- 
itors, so  I  was  not  in  debt,  but  I  was  penniless,  though  un- 
daunted and  unafraid.  Having  lived  in  Waco  for  almost 
two  years,  I  had  been  particularly  interested  in  Baylor  Uni- 
versity and  in  all  our  Baptist  work.  The  financial  secre- 
tary of  Baylor  University  at  that  time  was  Rev.  S.  L. 
Morris,  a  son-in-law  of  Dr.  R.  C.  Burleson.  I  had  already 
transacted  some  business  with  Brother  Morris  and  had 
learned  to  know  him  quite  well.  It  was  thus  that  I  talked 
over  with  him  the  fact  of  my  desire  for  work.  He  at  once 
suggested  that  I  take  a  position  with  him  as  a  solicitor  and 
collector  for  Baylor  University.  This  was  entirely  new 
work  to  me,  but  I  have  never  been  the  man  to  stand  around 
with  my  thumbs  in  my  mouth  and  whine,  so  I  accepted  his 
tender  of  this  work  and  entered  upon  it  with  zest  and  en- 
thusiasm. My  salary  was  $ioo  a  month  and  actual  travel- 
ing expenses.  I  rejoiced  to  get  that.  My  dear  wife  was 
one  of  the  greatest  domestic  economists  I  had  ever  known, 
the  fact  being  that  I  do  not  know  of  any  one  who  quite 
matches  her  along  this  line ;  so  I  felt  secure  in  the  thought 
of  receiving  a  salary  of  $ioo  a  month. 

But  the  job  was  a  hard  one.     Brother  Morris  equipped 
me   with   a   bundle   of   antiquated   endowment   notes   and 

361 


362       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

pledges.  He  thought  that  I  had  best  turn  my  attention  to 
collections  rather  than  to  the  matter  of  soliciting  new 
pledges,  so  out  I  went  into  this  new  and  untried  field.  It 
was  the  hardest  job  I  ever  undertook. 

One  sample  will  suffice  to  tell  this  story.  I  journeyed  to 
the  little  town  of  Kosse  in  Limestone  County.  A  great 
many  notes  had  been  signed  down  there.  One  thing  I  no- 
ticed at  Kosse  I  have  never  seen  duplicated  anywhere. 
Usually  the  little  $i  hotels  charge  the  traveling  man  $2  a 
day  regardless.  This  hotel,  however,  was  kept  by  an  hon- 
est man.  He  had  a  $1  a  day  dining  room  and  a  $2  a  day 
dining  room.  In  the  $1  a  day  dining  room  they  had  roast 
beef  and  cabbage;  in  the  $2  a  day  dining  room  they  had 
oysters,  fried  chicken  and  other  high  class  vegetables.  I 
took  the  $2  rate  for  luck,  and  fared  well.  The  roads 
around  Kosse  were  very  rough,  so  I  hired  a  cart  and  horse 
to  traverse  the  country  by-paths.  I  circled  the  town  for  a 
distance  of  ten  or  fifteen  miles,  hunting  for  the  makers  of 
these  notes.  Some  of  them  were  very  kind;  others  were 
extremely  hostile.  Some  were  dead  broke  and  repudiated 
the  pledges.  Others  (and  these  were  few)  paid  them.  Still 
others  asked  for  an  extension.  I  made  the  best  settlement 
possible,  and  after  having  cleaned  up  one  town  and  its 
environs,  I  went  immediately  to  another. 

I  found  many  difficulties  in  my  new  work,  but  I  did  my 
best,  and  the  returns  were  such  that  I  earned  the  good  will 
and  commendation  of  my  superiors. 

Some  time  late  in  the  year,  a  month  or  so  after  I  took 
work  under  Brother  Morris,  he  announced  that  on  January 
I  he  would  give  up  the  work.  The  result  was  that  the 
Board  of  Trustees  unanimously  elected  me  to  fill  his  place. 

It  was  a  most  difficult  position.  I  took  charge  of  it  on 
January  i  and  continued  in  the  work  as  best  I  could.  Bay- 
lor University  was  at  that  time  almost  $100,000  in  debt,  the 
Baptist  forces  of  the  State  were  not  well  organized,  and 


ON  A  NEW  TRAIL  363 

on  the  whole  the  task  of  collecting  these  notes,  securing 
new  endowment,  and  pledges  to  ministerial  education,  was 
fraught  with  the  gravest  responsibility  and  was  as  well  a 
high  opportunity  for  usefulness. 

I  continued  in  the  work  until  October,  1889,  nearly  one 
full  year.  Time  would  fail  me  to  recite  all  the  incidents 
of  interest  that  occurred  during  my  campaigning  for  Bay- 
lor University.  One  I  think  worthy  of  preservation  in  this 
chronicle,  is  herewith  given. 

On  my  rounds,  I  visited  the  church  at  Mexia,  of  which 
W.  I.  Feazell  was  pastor.  He  was  an  eloquent  and  force- 
ful preacher.  His  sermons  had  attracted  attention,  and 
aside  from  the  criticisms  (and  these  were  not  unkind)  of 
J.  T.  S.  Park,  an  old  time  Baptist  minister  of  his  congre- 
gation, he  was  enjoying  a  very  happy  pastoral  experience. 
Much  could  be  said  of  Brother  Feazell  in  many  ways,  but  I 
spare  his  memory.  The  last  I  heard  of  him,  he  was  no 
longer  in  the  ministry  and  was  in  many  ways  but  a  shadow 
of  his  former  self. 

Pushing  on  from  Mexia,  I  went  to  Honey  Grove,  where 
John  H.  Boyet  was  pastor.  He  was  at  that  time  and  still 
is  one  of  the  ablest  preachers  Texas  Baptists  ever  knew. 
I  have  often  wondered  why  Boyet  did  not  bloom  out  into 
a  metropolitan  pastorate.  Doubtless  the  reason  is  that  he 
never  aspired  to  be  a  far-famed  preacher.  He  has  had  few 
equals  in  the  Texas  Baptist  pulpit.  When  I  reached  Honey 
Grove,  Boyet  and  I  talked  a  great  deal,  exchanging  mutual 
confidences.  I  told  him  I  had  been  to  Mexia,  and  nar- 
rated circumstantially  the  incidents  that  were  grouping  them- 
selves around  the  popular  pastor,  W.  I.  Feazell.  Boyet 
entrusted  a  confidence  to  me  which  would  never  be  related 
here  if  Brother  Feazell  were  yet  in  the  ministry.  He  had 
been  in  part  responsible  for  Feazell  when  the  latter  was 
quite  a  young  man  down  in  Eastern  Texas,  and  Feazell  had 
leaned  very  strongly  upon  him  through  all  the  years.    The 


364       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

result  was  that  every  Monday  morning  Boyet  would  mail 
Feazell  the  two  sermons  he  had  preached  the  day  before  in 
his  own  pulpit.  The  following  Sunday  Feazell  in  turn  would 
preach  these  two  sermons  to  his  congregation  down  at 
Mexia.  Boyet  told  me  in  a  ripple  of  laughing  confidence 
that  he  doubted  not  that  Feazell  was  preaching  the  Boyet 
sermons  better  than  he  could  himself. 

I  heard  an  interesting  anecdote  concerning  Feazell. 
When  he  first  began  preaching  he  was  living  in  the  home 
of  S.  J.  Anderson,  pastor  at  Sulphur  Springs.  One  day 
he  came  to  Anderson  and  said: 

"Brother  Anderson,  I  have  to  preach  out  at  Black- 
jack Grove  today  and  I  wish  you  would  give  me  a  text" 

To  which  Anderson  replied: 

"  Feazell,  take  the  New  Testament,  go  to  your  room  and 
begin  reading,  and  very  soon  you  will  come  upon  a  text 
that  will  suggest  your  sermon  to  you." 

Feazell  turned  to  him  in  incredulous  amazement  and 
replied : 

"  Brother  Anderson,  I've  read  it  clean  through  and  there 
isn't  a  good  text  in  it !  " 


LIII 
THE  STORY  OF  FOUR  CONVENTIONS 

THE  consolidation  of  the  two  Baptist  general  bodies 
of  Texas  was  consummated  at  the  convention  which 
met  at  Waco  in  July,  1886.  I  was  still  living  at 
Gatesville,  but  was  a  delegate  to  this  meeting.  My  baby  was 
sick  at  the  time  and  I  only  staid  one  night  and  two  days,  but 
meantime  the  Convention  honored  me  by  an  appointment  as 
Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  the  liquor  traffic.  On  this 
committee  were  such  celebrities  as  I.  B.  Kimb rough  and 
W.  E.  Penn.  I  wrote  the  report,  and  these  brethen  very 
cordially  endorsed  it.  I  shall  never  forget  the  address 
made  upon  that  occasion  by  Dr.  Kimbrough.  He  was  one 
of  the  pulpit  ortaors  of  the  old  school.  A  native  of  Ten- 
nessee, reared  without  educational  advantages,  but  pos- 
sessed of  a  native  intellect  and  ability  rarely  surpassed,  he 
was  at  once  a  man  of  note  in  any  assembly.  I  read  the 
report  and  he  made  the  principal  address  in  its  advocacy. 
The  year  before.  Senator  Richard  Coke  had  said,  during 
the  heated  local  option  campaign  in  McLennan  County, 
"  Scourge  the  preachers  back  and  stop  their  rations."  This 
incensed  the  entire  ministry  of  Texas,  and  Dr.  Kimbrough 
had  this  strong  upon  his  mind  when  he  delivered  the  far- 
famed  address  at  this  Waco  convention.  Waco  was  the 
home  of  Senator  Coke-  While  he  did  not  refer  to  the 
Senator  by  name,  in  one  of  his  flights  of  oratory  he  used 
substantially  the  following  words : 

"  Before  I  would  yield  one  iota  to  the  minions  of  the 
liquor  traffic,  I  would  live  on  corn  cobs  and  stump  water." 

365 


366       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

Before  coming  to  Texas  Dr.  Kimbrough  was  the  field 
agent  in  Tennessee  of  Carson  and  Newman  College.  In 
that  capacity  he  traveled  over  the  state.  In  one  of  these 
journeys  through  the  wilds  of  Tennessee,  on  a  Monday 
morning,  he  was  held  up  by  two  highwaymen.  Before  he 
knew  it  they  were  on  him,  with  their  guns  upraised,  de- 
manding his  money.  He  very  deliberately  addressed  them 
as  follows: 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am  a  Baptist  minister.  My  work  is  to 
go  over  the  state  and  solicit  funds  for  the  young  preachers 
of  Tennessee  who  are  in  school  at  Carson  and  Newman 
College,  and  also  to  secure  such  help  for  the  school  as  I 
am  able  to  get.  I  have  in  my  pocket  two  purses  of  money. 
One  represents  a  collection  I  took  yesterday  for  this  Chris- 
tian work;  the  other  contains  my  own  private  funds.  I 
will  get  down  here  in  the  road  and  I  will  lay  these  two 
purses  in  different  piles.  You  may  take  my  money  if  you 
wish  to,  but  I  dare  you,  in  the  name  of  God,  to  touch  the 
money  that  has  been  made  sacred  by  having  been  given 
to  His  cause." 

The  highwaymen  paused,  looked  at  each  other,  and 
began  to  inquire  more  about  the  work  at  Carson  and  New- 
man College.  Dr.  Kimbrough  explained  it  categorically. 
After  he  had  made  his  talk  to  them,  they  said : 

"  We  will  not  take  either  your  money,  or  the  money  of  the 
college." 

With  this  Dr.  Kimbrough  was  emboldened  to  add: 

"  Gentlemen,  you  are  very  kind,  and  I  am  deeply  grate- 
ful for  your  consideration.  Now  that  I  have  detailed  the 
importance  of  this  work  to  you,  don't  you  think  you  ought 
to  help  me  make  it  go  ?  " 

These  would-be  robbers  gave  him  $5  apiece ! 

The  Waco  Convention  became  historic  on  account  of  the 
point  at  which  the  Convention  touched  the  Baptist  paper 
question.    At  that  time  there  were  two  papers  in  the  State, 


A  STORY  OF  FOUR  CONVENTIONS       367 

each  seeking  State-wide  recognition,  The  Texas  Baptist 
Her  aid  J  published  at  Austin  by  J.  B.  Link,  and  The  Texas 
Baptist,  published  at  Dallas  by  S.  A.  Hayden.  Each  of 
these  men  wished  for  his  paper  to  become  the  recognized 
organ  of  the  consolidated  convention.  Hayden  had  been 
making  a  great  ado  in  his  publication  concerning  the  impor- 
tance of  what  was  then  called  unification  of  everything. 
He  wanted  the  schools,  conventions  and  papers  to  unite. 
He  drove  Link  to  the  wall  in  more  ways  than  one,  and 
when  they  had  finally  agreed  upon  a  basis  of  consolida- 
tion, after  a  convention  vote,  Dallas  won  by  one  majority, 
the  delegates  from  the  First  church  at  Waco  declining  to 
vote.  Hayden  had  previously  agreed  to  pay  Link  $10,000 
for  the  good  will  and  subscription  list  of  The  Texas  Bap- 
tist Herald,  and  to  retain  Link  on  the  staff  as  associate 
or  corresponding  editor. 

In  1887  the  Convention  met  with  the  First  Church  at 
Dallas.  Nothing  of  great  moment  occurred  at  that  meeting. 
After  a  trial  of  a  full  year  under  the  new  plan,  all  the 
brotherhood  seemed  pleased,  and  the  denomination  was  at 
peace.  At  that  time,  R.  T.  Hanks  was  pastor  of  the  First 
Church  at  Dallas. 

The  Convention  of  1888  met  in  October  at  Belton. 
Meantime  we  had  passed  through  the  prohibition  campaign 
of  1887.  My  work  as  editor  of  The  Waco  Advance  had 
given  me  wide  publicity,  and  my  attendance  at  the  two 
Baptist  General  Conventions  already  held  had  extended 
my  Baptist  acquaintanceship  over  the  State.  The  result 
was  that  at  the  Belton  Convention  I  was  selected  by  the 
president  of  the  Convention  to  respond  to  the  address  of 
welcome,  which  was  made  by  M.  V.  Smith,  the  beloved 
pastor  at  Belton.  Following  upon  this  duty,  which  I  ren- 
dered as  best  I  could,  I  was  elected  Recording  Secretary 
of  the  Convention,  there  being  at  that  time  only  one  secre- 
tary.    During  the  sessions  of  this  body,   I  was  a  guest 


368       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

in  the  home  of  M.  V.  Smith  and  cemented  a  friendship 
between  us  which  had  begun  when  I  lived  at  Gatesville. 
One  of  the  incidents  of  this  meeting  wsa  private  inter- 
view with  J.  H.  Stribling,  pastor  at  Rockdale.  He  had 
heard  my  response  to  the  address  of  welcome,  had  watched 
my  movements  in  the  Convention  with  great  interest,  and 
even  before  that  had  been  familiar  with  my  work  for  prohi- 
bition. Taking  me  to  one  side,  he  pressed  upon  my  heart 
and  conscience  the  duty  of  giving  all  my  life  and  time  to 
the  ministry.  He  was  a  noble,  gentle-hearted  man,  and  one 
whose  memory  I  shall  ever  cherish. 

The  fourth  Convention  was  in  many  respects  the  most 
memorable  of  them  all.  It  was  the  National  Prohibition  Con- 
vention which  met  in  May,  1888,  at  Indianapolis,  Indiana. 
All  the  notables  were  there  except  the  immortal  John  B. 
Finch,  who  had  died  the  autumn  before.  This  was  the 
first  National  Prohibition  Convention  I  had  ever  attended. 
Those  were  the  days  of  the  New  York  Voice,  of  Dr.  I.  K. 
Funk,  of  the  strong  and  buoyant  John  P.  St.  John,  of  the 
world-wide  work  of  Frances  E.  Willard.  It  was  during 
this  meeting  that  Decoration  Day  came  around  and  Miss 
Willard  was  chosen  as  the  orator  on  that  occasion.  I  have 
heard  many  thrilling  orations,  both  from  the  pulpit  and 
the  platform,  but  in  all  of  my  experience  I  have  never 
heard  an  address  that  excelled  this  one.  In  some  ways 
Henry  Ward  Beecher's  deliverance  at  Waco  in  1885  on 
"  The  Reign  of  the  Common  People  "  was  superior  to  any- 
thing to  which  I  ever  listened,  but  in  winsomeness,  sweet- 
ness, pathos  and  genuine  heart-touching  eloquence,  this  Dec- 
oration Day  address  of  Miss  Willard's  was  in  itself  enough 
to  make  her  immortal. 

During  the  Convention  I  was  the  guest  of  Luther  Benson, 
the  dear  friend  who  had  come  down  to  Gateville  four  years 
before,  and  delivered  those  marvelous  addresses  in  the  in- 
terest of  prohibition.    It  was  at  this  Convention  that  I  first 


A  STORY  OF  FOUR  CONVENTIONS        369 

met  J.  B.  Gambrell.     He  was  a  delegate  from  Mississippi, 
and  the  only  delegate  from  that  State. 

Prior  to  this  1888  Convention,  my  good  friend,  George 
R.  Scott,  now  in  heaven,  who  was  at  that  time  editor  of 
The  Pioneer,  of  New  York,  had  mentioned  my  name  in 
connection  with  the  vice-presidential  nomination.  I  felt  it, 
therefore,  my  duty  to  acquaint  the  members  present  with 
the  fact  that  I  was  not  legally  of  sufficient  age  to  entitle 
me  to  the  nomination.  When  this  was  made  plain,  all 
talk  of  this  preferment  of  necessity  melted  away.  How- 
ever, I  was  greatly  honored  by  this  body.  I  was  placed  on 
the  Committee  on  Platform  and  in  turn  upon  the  sub-com- 
mittee of  the  Platform  Committee.  There  were  five  of  us  on 
the  sub-committee,  one  of  the  others  being  Frances  Wil- 
lard.  We  sat  up  all  night  formulating  a  platform.  Luther 
Benson  very  kindly  staid  with  me,  and  we  did  not  reach 
his  home  to  retire  until  five  o'clock  the  following  morning. 

Mrs.  Benson  is  one  of  the  choicest  spirits  I  have  known. 
After  the  death  of  her  distinguished  husband  she  bravely 
took  up  the  task  of  rightly  rearing  their  four  children. 
All  now  are  jg^rown  and  this  gentle-hearted  mother  is  happy 
in  their  prosperity  and  love. 

In  many  respects,  this  1888  Convention  was  historic. 
General  Clinton  B.  Fisk,  of  New  York,  and  John  A.  Brooks 
of  Missouri,  were  chosen  as  our  standard  bearers.  They 
made  a  great  campaign.  The  trouble  we  had  on  the  Plat- 
from  Committee  was  concerning  the  woman  suffrage 
question.  My  head  has  always  been  converted  to  woman 
suffrage.  I  was  perfectly  willing  for  some  kind  of  a 
woman  suffrage  plank  to  be  inserted  in  our  platform,  but 
frankly  told  Miss  Willard  that  I  wished  a  plank  might  be 
inserted  that  would  read  for  woman  suffrage  in  the  North 
and  against  it  in  the  South.  She  smilingly  told  me,  as  we 
discussed  this  plank  of  the  platform,  that  woman  suffrage 


370       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

would  outrun  prohibition.  I  did  not  believe  it  then,  but 
from  the  indications  apparent  on  every  hand  as  this  chron- 
icle is  penned,  it  is  evident  that  she  was  a  prophet.  It  seems 
now  that  woman  suffrage  will  probably  become  nation-wide 
through  state  action  before  we  get  national  prohibition. 


LIV 

ENTERING  UPON  ANOTHER  NEW  WORK 

I  LOVED  the  work  for  Baylor  University  sincerely,  and 
devoted  to  it  every  hour  of  my  time  and  every  atom 
of  my  thoughts.  My  interest  in  matters  educational 
was  congenital.  While  myself  deprived  of  college  training, 
I  was  all  the  more  eagfer  to  furnish  the  hi^^hest  educational 
opportunities  to  others.  Moreover,  I  was  then,  as  now,  a 
6rm  and  aggressive  advocate  of  Christian  education,  a  de- 
voted friend  of  Dr.  R.  C.  Burleson,  president  of  the  Univer- 
sity, and  never  in  any  relation  of  life  have  I  enjoyed  fellow- 
ship with  a  finer  body  of  men  than  the  Trustees  of  Baylor 
University,  of  which  B.  H.  Carroll  was  president,  John  T. 
Battle  secretary,  and  F.  L.  Carroll  treasurer. 

After  my  return  from  Colorado,  I  had  sought  an  inter- 
view with  Dr.  Burleson  concerning  a  different  connec- 
tion with  the  University.  I  had  decided,  if  the  way  could 
be  opened,  to  complete  my  education.  Dr.  Burleson  was 
familiar  with  my  work  as  teacher  of  the  Crawford  school, 
and  knew  that  I  could  teach  reasonably  well  whatever  I 
knew.  I  applied  to  him  for  a  position  as  teacher  of  the 
lower  branches  in  the  school,  which  at  that  time  maintained 
a  primary  department.  While  thus  teaching  and  drawing 
such  salary  from  the  school  as  this  work  would  justify, 
I  announced  my  purpose  to  him  of  entering  upon  class 
work  in  those  departments  in  which  I  was  deficient.  In 
this  way,  I  purposed  and  hoped  to  take  the  full  course  at 
Baylor  University  and  win  my  university  degree. 

Dr.  Burleson's  reception  of  my  plan  was  coldly  indif- 

371 


372       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

ferent.  I  do  not  to  this  day  understand  why  this  was  so. 
He  had  been  so  enthusiastic  in  his  solicitude  for  my  edu- 
cation eleven  years  before  when  I  was  teaching  at  Craw- 
ford, that  I  was  amazed  at  the  coldness  with  which  he 
treated  this  application.  I  was  too  proud  to  ask  the  reason. 
It  was  within  his  power  at  that  time  to  have  opened  the 
door  for  me  to  have  achieved  a  college  education.  He 
was  the  only  man  in  Texas  that  could  have  done  this,  and 
it  seemed  to  carry  to  him  no  appeal  whatever.  I  did  not 
feel  hurt  at  my  friend,  the  venerable  president  of  the  Uni- 
versity, for  this  indifference,  and  I  do  not  hold  it  against 
his  memory,  but  I  have  wondered  if,  on  account  of  his 
advancing  age  and  increasing  suspiciousness,  he  saw  in  me 
a  possible  embryonic  aspirant  for  the  position  of  president 
of  Baylor  University  in  the  years  to  come.  This  may  or 
may  not  have  been  true,  but  I  am  sure  that  if  he  had  at 
that  time  retained  the  vigor  of  mind  that  had  character- 
ized him  when  I  taug-ht  the  Crawford  school,  he  would 
have  welcomed  me  with  a  joyous  heart  to  the  halls  of  Baylor 
University  and  would  have  given  me  the  chance  which  I  so 
deeply  craved. 

During  the  years  1888-89,  what  is  known  among  Texas 
Baptists  as  the  Hanks-Hayden  trouble  was  disturbing  the  en- 
tire brotherhood.  S.  A.  Hayden,  then  the  journalistic  dic- 
tator of  the  State  and  a  resident  of  Dallas,  began  to  pur- 
sue R.  T.  Hanks,  pastor  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  of 
Dallas.  It  is  not  meet  that  I  should  recount  the  incidents 
of  this  unhappy  period.  My  more  immediate  concern  is 
with  A.  J.  Holt,  who  at  that  time  was  superintendent  of 
the  Texas  Baptist  Mission  Work,  and  my  subsequent  re- 
lation to  him  and  his  position.  Hayden  had  managed  to 
secure  Holt  as  a  partner  in  the  publication  of  The  Texas 
Baptist  and  Herald^  which  is  easy  to  understand.  Holt 
had  under  his  supervision  and  practical  control  all  of  the 
missionary  force  of  Texas.  With  this  force  as  active  agents 


ANOTHER  NEW  WORK  373 

for  Hayden's  paper,  the  plan  in  essence,  which  in  after 
years  became  known  as  denominational  control,  was  in  ac- 
tive operation.  At  that  time  it  was  denominational  control 
with  Hayden  and  Holt  as  the  denomination,  and,  really, 
this  is  all  denominational  control  will  ever  mean.  It  will 
mean  that  the  man  that  controls  the  denomination  will  con- 
trol the  paper,  just  as  was  done  in  that  instance.  And  that 
is  exactly  what  we  have  now. 

There  was  rebellion.  This  grew  and  strengthened.  There 
was  much  unrest  on  account  of  the  pursuit  of  Hanks  by 
Hayden.  The  brotherhood  had  begun  to  identify  Holt 
with  all  of  the  efi'orts  that  Hayden  was  making  to  destroy 
Hanks.  It  was  thus  that  when  the  Baptist  General  Con- 
vention of  1889  met  at  Houston,  and  the  question  of  elect- 
ing a  Superintendent  of  Missions  came  up,  two  names  were 
placed  in  nomination.  B.  H.  Carroll  nominated  A.  J.  Holt, 
and  A.  M.  Sims  nominated  me.  The  first  result  was  the 
election  of  Holt  by  a  small  majority,  whereupon  R.  R. 
White  announced  that  he  would  under  no  circumstances 
co-operate  with  Holt.  This  precipitated  a  crisis  and  a  re- 
consideration of  the  vote,  with  the  result  that  I  was  elected 
and  my  election  subsequently  made  unanimous. 

This  incident  revolutionized  my  life  and  work.  I  gave 
up  the  Financial  Secretaryship  of  Baylor  University  and 
took  the  position  of  Superintendent  of  the  entire  Baptist 
Mission  work  of  the  State. 

Previous  to  my  election  by  the  Convention,  a  remarkable 
incident  occurred.  B.  H.  Carroll  had  received  the  impres- 
sion that  the  objection  to  Holt  was  largely  due  to  his  con- 
nection with  Hayden's  paper-  Within  a  few  short  hours 
this  objection  was  wholly  eliminated  by  a  trade  by  which 
Holt  sold  his  interest  in  the  paper  back  to  Hayden.  When 
this  arrangement  was  completed,  B.  H.  Carroll  announced 
the  result  to  the  Convention,  but  it  did  not  stem  the  tide 
of  opposition  to  Holt. 


374       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

It  was  necessary  for  me  to  make  my  decision  promptly. 
The  mission  work  of  the  State  had  suffered  very  greatly  on 
account  of  the  Hayden-Hanks  trouble  and  Holt's  connec- 
tion therewith.  A  debt  which  at  that  time  was  quite  large, 
had  been  incurred,  and  still  remained  against  the  State  Mis- 
sion Board.  It  was  under  these  conditions  that  I  took  up 
the  work.  I  sympathized  deeply  with  Holt,  whom  I  esteemed 
highly. 

My  resignation  as  Financial  Secretary  of  Baylor  Univer- 
sity was  a  great  grief  to  me.  While  a  majority  of  the 
Board  took  the  matter  philosophically,  and  while,  as  the 
after  years  fully  testified,  it  was  all  for  the  best,  one  or 
two  members  held  it  against  me  for  years,  that  I  had,  as 
Dr.  O.  I.  Halbert  said,  "left  them  in  the  lurch."  That  was 
not  my  purpose,  and  I  only  accepted  the  work  as  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Mission  Board  because  I  felt  that  it  was  a 
larger  field  of  usefulness. 

There  never  had  been  any  rupture  of  any  sort  between 
S.  A.  Hay  den  and  myself  up  to  that  time.  When  I  suc- 
ceeded A.  J.  Holt  as  Secretary  of  Missions,  Hayden  threw 
open  his  columns  to  me  and  professed  great  fidelity  to  the 
work-  I  was  chosen  as  editor  of  his  Children's  Department, 
known  then  as  the  "  Barrel  Band,"  and  wrote  much  for 
The  Texas  Baptist  and  Herald  in  the  interest  of  the  work. 
He  granted  me  unlimited  space,  and  during  the  years  of  my 
incumbency  as  Superintendent  of  Missions,  showed  me 
many  courtesies.  Inasmuch  as  his  was  the  only  paper  of 
State-wide  circulation  the  Baptists  had,  it  was  in  every  way 
good  policy  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with  him  and  his 
paper,  and  this  I  did.  I  was  more  than  once  a  guest  in 
his  home.  He  was  cordial  to  me,  and  aside  from  the  fact 
that  now  and  then  he  would  seek  to  interest  me  in  some  of 
his  personal  conflicts,  I  found  nothing  in  his  attitude  dur- 
ing my  two-and-a-half  years  as  Superintendent  of  Missions 


ANOTHER  NEW  WORK  375 

to  criticise,  insofar  as  his  relations  to  me  and  the  work  were 
concerned. 

December,  1888,  at  about  the  time  I  was  a  guest  of  John 
H.  Boyet,  at  Honey  Grove,  he  and  Lewis  Holland  started 
a  little  Baptist  paper  called  The  Baptist  News.  It  was  so 
small  that  it  reminded  me  of  The  Turnersville  Effort  of  a 
former  time.  This  little  paper  was  not  dignified  with  any 
great  amount  of  attention  from  any  source,  but  it  began 
to  secure  a  small  foothold  in  Fannin  and  adjoining  counties. 
When  I  became  Superintendent  of  Missions  it  was  so  in- 
consequential that  I  did  not  reckon  with  it  as  a  factor  in 
the  work.  It  was  not  long,  however,  until  this  paper  be- 
came more  formidable.  R.  T.  Hanks  bought  the  interest 
of  John  H.  Boyet  and  he  and  Lewis  Holland  moved  it  to 
Dallas  and  changed  its  name  to  The  Western  Baptist.  The 
paper  then  began  to  be  a  factor  in  the  Baptist  work  of  the 
State.  This  was  all  the  more  true  because  of  the  friction 
between  Hayden  and  Hanks.  As  Superintendent  of  the 
Texas  Baptist  Mission  Work,  it  was  my  firm  purpose  to 
refrain  from  any  connection  whatsoever  with  any  factions 
anywhere.  At  that  time,  I  thought  of  R.  T.  Hanks  as  the 
leader  of  one  faction  and  S-  A.  Hayden  as  the  leader  of 
another  faction.  My  mind  changed  in  the  after  years.  I 
do  not  see  any  reason  why  a  man  should  be  called  the  leader 
of  a  faction  simply  because  another  man  denounces  him 
as  a  horse-thief  and  a  cut-throat,  particularly  when  the  man 
so  denounced  is  a  Christian  gentleman  of  the  very  highest 
type,  and  a  man  who  is  an  honor  to  the  cause  and  to  the 
brotherhood  at  large.  But  my  eyes  were  not  opened  then 
as  they  were  later  on. 

I  had  not  been  Superintendent  of  Missions  very  long  un- 
til I  established  a  paper  called  The  State  Mission  Journal, 
a  little  monthly  designed  to  present  the  State  Mission  work 
from  the  Secretary's  standpoint.  It  is  what  in  business 
would  be  called  a  house  organ.     It  paid  its  expenses  and 


376       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

enabled  me  as  Superintendent  of  Missions  to  secure  quite 
a  great  deal  of  railway  transportation,  which  in  those  good 
days  was  exchanged  for  newspaper  advertising. 


LV 


AS  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  THE  TEXAS  BAPTIST 
MISSION  WORK 

WHEN  I  accepted  the  superintendency  of  the  Texas 
Baptist  Mission  Work,  the  Board  was  located  at 
Waco.  B.  H.  Carroll  was  president,  and  John  T. 
Battle  secretary.  Other  members  of  the  Board  were  F.  L. 
Carroll,  Homer  Wells,  M.  H.  Standifer,  W.  H.  Jenkins  and 
Rufus  C.  Burleson.  Up  to  that  time,  the  position  of  Secre- 
tary of  Missions  was  a  one  man  job.  It  had  been  the  cus- 
tom for  my  predecessor,  a  man  of  indefatigable  energy  and 
marked  ability,  to  visit  the  Baptist  Associations  of  Texas  in 
person.  He  covered  as  many  of  these  meetings  as  was  pos- 
sible and  made  a  canvass  of  the  state  as  he  could,  preaching 
somewhere  every  Sunday  and  taking  a  collection. 

Very  naturally  I  fell  into  the  same  plan.  A.  J.  Holt  was 
a  man  of  iron.  He  was  an  absolute  stranger  to  fatigue.  He 
could  double  up  in  a  seat  of  a  day  coach  and  sleep  hours 
at  a  time  without  a  break,  and  then  wake  up  fresh  for  the 
duties  of  the  next  day.  In  this  respect  he  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  men  it  has  been  my  pleasure  to  know. 

I  was  not  built  of  iron  as  was  he.  I  undertook  the  work 
with  the  same  energy,  determination  and  tireless  activity 
that  has  been  my  wont  through  life.  I  never  knew  how  to 
touch  anything  half-heartedly.  I  either  had  to  go  in  for  my 
whole  length  or  not  at  all. 

The  result  was  that  I  was  soon  practically  a  physical 
wreck.  I  would  attend  from  one  to  four  Baptist  Associa- 
tions a  week,  and  running  in  home  from  the  field  would 

377 


378       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

clean  up  the  accumulated  correspondence,  attend  to  the 
financial  affairs  of  the  Board,  and  again  fare  forth  in  the 
same  manner  as  before. 

When  I  was  elected  to  this  work  I  weighed  230  pounds. 
I  was  in  prime  health  in  every  way.  I  was  thirty-one  years 
old,  and  optimistic  to  the  last  degree,  but  found  myself  rap- 
idly losing  flesh,  and  becoming  invalided. 

Very  naturally,  when  my  health  failed,  I  went  to  my  fath- 
er's home.  He  had  brought  me  through  all  my  youth-time 
illnesses,  and  I  had  more  confidence  in  him  than  I  had  ever 
had  in  any  physician.  I  stayed  a  week  with  my  father  and 
mother,  and  the  memory  of  this  visit  I  shall  cherish  always. 
With  that  tender  love  that  had  ever  characterized  their  lives, 
they  ministered  to  me  and  nursed  me  as  best  they  could,  but 
I  did  not  respond  to  the  treatments  as  I  had  done  in  former 
years.  Little  did  I  think  as  I  left  the  dear  old  home  that  the 
next  time  I  came  into  those  walls,  I  would  come  to  visit  my 
sweet,  dear  mother  as  she  lay  prone  upon  her  bed  of  death. 

I  lost  60  pounds  in  weight,  and  became  so  nervous  that 
even  the  excitement  of  opening  a  letter  would  almost  cause 
my  heart  to  stop.  I  would  have  resigned  the  work,  but  the 
beloved  Dr.  Carroll,  president  of  the  Board,  urged  me  to  go 
ahead  and  wait  until  I  was  well  again.  There  are  two  inci- 
dents in  connection  with  this  illness  that  will  always  linger 
in  my  heart. 

One  was  concerning  a  book.  When  I  was  so  ill  that  I 
dared  not  take  up  any  work,  I  sought  some  reading  matter 
that  would  be  light  and  helpful.  I  knew  something  of  E.  P. 
Roe,  but  had  never  read  any  of  his  books.  Going  into  a 
Waco  book-store  I  picked  up  the  volume.  Opening  a  Chest- 
nut Burr,  and  glancing  at  the  first  sentence  found  that  it 
began  this  way: 

"  I  wonder  if  I  will  ever  be  well  again !  " 

That  was  the  thought  uppermost  in  my  own  mind,  so  I 
bought  the  book  and  read  it  with  great  avidity.     It  helped 


AS  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  MISSIONS     379 

me  much,  and  finding  this  to  be  splendid  literature  for  a 
sick  man,  I  bought  and  read  other  books  from  the  same  pen. 
The  one  outstanding  incident,  however,  was  a  direct  and 
wonderful  answer  to  prayer  that  came  to  me  when  I  was  at 
my  worst.  I  had  my  little  family,  and  was  charged  with  a 
great  responsibility,  so  it  was  no  wonder  that  I  desired  to 
know  whether  I  was  ever  to  be  well  again.  I  went  out  alone, 
and  on  bended  knees  I  prayed  the  good  Lord  to  reveal  to  me 
whether  or  not  I  was  going  to  get  well.  As  I  arose  there 
flashed  into  my  mind  this  impression :  Go  and  read  Flint^s 
Practice  again.  That  was  the  book  I  had  used  as  a  text 
book  years  before  when  I  was  a  medical  student.  I  sought 
the  book,  and  read  the  article  on  "  Heart  Disease."  I  had 
feared  that  my  heart  would  fail,  and  that  my  life  would  thus 
suddenly  end.  The  reading  of  this  article  convinced  me  that 
I  had  no  heart  disease,  with  the  result  that  I  began  immedi- 
ately to  improve  in  health.  It  was  God's  way  of  assuring  me 
that  my  life  was  to  be  lengthened  out,  and  from  the  moment 
that  I  thus  laid  the  case  before  Him,  I  was  on  the  road  to 
health  and  strength. 


LVI 

ORDINATION  TO  THE  MINISTRY 

BY  this  time  we  had  come  to  January,  1890,  and  the 
church  at  Waco,  having  called  for  my  ordination, 
convened  a  presbytery  for  that  purpose.  My  dear 
father  and  mother  came  down  from  Gatesville  to  be  present 
at  my  ordination. 

I  did  not  then  nor  have  I  ever  felt  worthy  to  be  a  minister. 
There  has  never  been  a  day  that  I  felt  I  was  the  man  for  so 
noble  a  work.  My  sense  of  unworthiness,  of  unfitness,  of 
sinfulness  and  of  insufficiency  has  never  departed  from  me 
for  a  single  moment.  The  examination  seemed  satisfactory 
to  the  presbytery,  and  after  the  ordination  sermon  by  B.  H. 
Carroll,  the  delivery  of  the  charge  by  R.  C.  Burleson,  the 
prayer  by  M.  V.  Smith,  the  presentation  of  the  Bible  by 
F.  M.  Law  and  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the  presbytery, 
I  was  counted  as  having  been  set  apart  to  the  full  work  of 
the  Gospel  ministry. 

Many  fitful  years  have  intervened  since  that  hour  in  the 
long  as:o.  I  have  suffered  much.  I  have  traversed  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  time.  Often  I  have  been  in 
the  trough  of  life's  tempestuous  sea.  I  have  journeyed  on 
until  now  I  am  past  the  meridian  tide,  and  my  face  is  turn- 
ing toward  the  westering  hills,  but  I  feel  as  these  words  are 
written  the  gentle  pressure  of  the  hands  of  these  noble  men 
upon  my  head  as  I  did  that  day.  Would  God  I  had  each 
day  lived  and  served  as  becomes  one  so  solemnly  dedicated 
to  the  service  of  the  Lord ! 

The  next  day  father  and  mother  went  back  to  their  home 

380 


ORDINATION  TO  THE  MINISTRY  381 

at  Gatesville  and  I  went  out  upon  my  work  again,  but  I  was 
ill.  I  became  less  able  to  perform  the  duties  (and  they  were 
very  heavy  duties,  too)  that  had  been  assigned  me.  The 
members  of  the  Board  were  kindness  itself.  B.  H.  Carroll, 
the  president,  helped  me  by  way  of  suggestions  and  co-opera- 
tion in  every  way  he  could,  but  my  health  went  down.  Within 
another  week  I  was  forced  to  give  up  traveling  and  remain 
at  home. 

The  road  upward  was  a  long,  slow  road,  as  it  always  is 
in  troubles  of  this  kind.  I  was  the  victim  of  nervous  indi- 
gestion. I  had  gone  to  pieces  on  account  of  overwork.  And 
it  was  no  wonder  that  I  had  indigestion.  The  wonder  is  that 
any  man  who  travels  around  lives  long,  no  matter  how  well 
he  is  when  he  begins  his  journeyings.  This  jumping  out 
at  some  junction  point  to  eat  a  meal  in  six  minutes,  made 
up  of  scraps  of  rancid  ham  and  stale  light  bread,  punctuated 
with  chocolate-colored  dishwater,  which  for  politeness  the 
lunchstand  man  calls  coffee,  is  enough  to  send  the  stoutest 
digestive  apparatus  to  the  scrap  heap. 

Aye,  more — and  I  step  softly  here  for  the  reason  that  I 
may  tread  upon  some  tender  and  altogether  friendly  toes. 
The  stuff  that  is  fed  to  the  traveling  preacher  in  the  average 
home  is  as  indigestible  as  coffin  nails.  I  recall  a  sample  of 
biscuits  that  were  fed  to  me  in  the  home  of  one  of  my  be- 
loved brethren  when  I  was  out  on  a  missionary  tour  in  West 
Texas.  I  did  not  preserve  any  of  this  compound,  but  I  wish 
I  had.  I  am  satisfied  that  properly  treated  these  biscuits 
would  have  made  splendid  leather.  All  they  needed  was  to 
have  been  unwound  and  had  holes  cut  in  the  ends.  They 
would  have  made  good  trace  chains.  I  have  always  won- 
dered why  it  was  that,  when  the  average  Baptist  housewife 
is  looking  for  the  preacher,  she  compounds  so  many  poison- 
ous substances  with  which  to  welcome  him.  From  these 
biscuits,  redolent  of  hog's  lard,  on  down  to  the  souse,  in 
some  districts  called  hog's-head  cheese,  these  food  products 


382       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

are  shoveled  into  the  waiting  food  receptable  of  the  visiting 
preachers  until  it  is  a  wonder  that  any  of  them  live  out  half 
their  days. 

In  January,  1890,  a  missionary  mass  meeting  was  held  at 
McKinney.  This  was  in  consonance  with  a  plan  outlined  by 
the  State  Mission  Board  to  hold  these  missionary  mass  meet- 
ings in  various  parts  of  the  state.  At  this  meeting,  B.  H. 
Carroll  and  I  were  guests  of  John  P.  Crouch  and  wife.  The 
meeting  was  widely  attended.  Among  the  young  men  whom 
I  met  for  the  first  time  were  George  W.  Truett  and  F.  M. 
McConnell,  both  at  that  time  ordained  Baptist  ministers. 
Through  all  the  after  years  I  have  associated  these  two 
men  together.  As  was  the  rule  in  these  missionary  mass 
meetings,  I  was  given  the  principal  hour  in  which  to  present 
the  state  mission  work.  The  Sunday  occasion  was  univer- 
sally accorded  to  B.  H.  Carroll,  who  was  at  that  time  and  for 
many  years  preceding  and  following,  the  Colossus  among 
Texas  Baptists.  So  far  as  I  am  able  to  recall,  neither  of 
the  young  men  to  whom  I  have  referred  had  a  word  to  say 
in  this  meeting.  One  purpose  of  the  visit  of  Dr.  Carroll 
to  this  mass  meeting  was  to  have  an  interview  with  George 
W.  Truett.  R.  F.  Jenkins,  pastor  at  Daingerfield,  had  writ- 
ten Dr.  Carroll  that  there  was  a  young  man  at  Whitewright, 
principal  of  the  school  there,  who  would  be  an  ideal  financial 
secretary  for  Baylor  University.  Since  my  resignation  from 
that  position,  there  had  been  no  permanent  successor  chosen. 
It  was  to  greet  George  W.  Truett  and  to  go  over  this  im- 
portant matter  with  him,  at  least  in  part,  that  Dr.  Carroll 
came  to  this  meeting.  The  interview  was  measurably  sat- 
isfactory to  both.  Brother  Truett  expressed  very  grave 
doubt  of  his  ability  to  do  the  work,  but  Dr.  Carroll  was  in- 
sistent. He  secured  a  promise  from  Brother  Truett  to  come 
to  Waco  soon  and  meet  the  Baylor  University  trustees. 
Brother  Truett  did  go  to  Waco,  did  meet  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees, and  a  little  later  accepted  the  position  of  financial  sec- 


Rev.  George  W.  Truett.  Pastor  First  Baptist  Church,  Dallas. 


ORDINATION  TO  THE  MINISTRY         383 

retary  of  Baylor  University,  through  which  work,  joined 
with  the  great  help  of  B.  H.  Carroll,  the  debt  of  $92,000  was 
soon  provided. 


LVII 
THE  DEATH  OF  MY  MOTHER 

ON  February  20,  1890,  word  reached  me  that  my  moth- 
er was  very  ill.  I  hastened  to  her  bedside.  She  had 
contracted  lagrippe,  which  had  soon  eventuated  in 
pneumonia.  Never  strong  at  any  time,  she  now  failed  rap- 
idly.  She  was,  however,  a  woman  of  remarkable  powers 
of  endurance  and  resistance  to  disease.  Having  been  al- 
ways very  regular  in  her  habits  of  life,  possessing  abound- 
ing faith  in  God,  and  believing  that  if  it  were  His  will  she 
would  recover,  she  availed  herself  of  every  possible  oppor- 
tunity to  get  well.  Regularly  she  took  her  meals,  knowing 
full  well  the  value  of  nutrition.  Her  mind  never  for  an 
instant  wavered.  She  suffered  much,  but  she  was  patient 
and  resigned  through  every  moment. 

She  did  not  think  she  was  going  to  die,  and  we  did  not 
reveal  our  own  solicitude.  However,  she  was  wise  enough 
to  know  that  we  were  very  anxious  concerning  her  condi- 
tion. Often  she  would  look  up  into  my  father's  face  and 
read  his  thoughts.  AVhile  he  never  for  a  single  moment  in- 
dicated to  her  the  fear  that  was  in  his  heart,  she  knew  him 
so  well  that  it  was  easily  discernible. 

Never  shall  I  forget  her  greeting  when  I  entered  the  sick- 
room. Opening  her  arms  to  welcome  me,  she  said,  "  There's 
my  baby !  "  Although  I  was  now  more  than  thirty-one  years 
of  age,  and  in  the  thick  of  life's  conflicts,  I  was  still  to  her 
the  baby  boy  that  had  played  about  her  knee  in  the  years 
long  gone.  I  know  that  she  loved  me.  As  I  have  journeyed 
on  through  the  storms  and  disappointments  of  the  after 

384 


THE  DEATH  OF  MY  MOTHER  385 

years,  I  have  been  oft  bereft  of  the  evanescent  friendship 
of  many  who  at  one  time  professed  for  me  great  devotion 
and  great  love.  I  have  learned  not  to  set  too  great  store  by 
these  passing  attachments.  Many  of  them  fade  as  fades 
the  dew  before  the  heat  of  the  summer  sun,  but  my  mother's 
love  shone  resplendent  every  hour  of  her  saintly  life  and 
encompassed  me  like  a  halo  of  enduring  splendor  after  she 
had  gone. 

We  did  all  we  could  to  save  her.  The  best  medical 
skill  available  was  laid  under  tribute  to  her.  My  father, 
who  knew  her  best,  taxed  his  skill  and  ingenuity  to  the  ut- 
most to  preserve  her  self-sacrificing  life.  It  was  all  in  vain. 
On  the  morning  of  February  26  we  knew  that  her  last  hours 
had  come.  True  to  her  habits  of  life,  at  six  o'clock  she 
called  for  her  breakfast.  She  had  her  coffee  and  her  little 
mite  of  food,  but  took  it  mechanically.  She  had  no  relish 
for  it.  I  sat  by  her  bed  and  watched  her  every  moment. 
After  another  hour  had  passed,  her  pulse  had  gone.  She 
then  knew  her  end  was  near,  and  asked  me  to  bring  the  old 
family  Bible  to  her  bed.  She  said,  "  Son,  read  to  me  the 
23rd  Psalm."  I  turned  to  this  Psalm  and  was  reading  it  to 
her.  When  I  had  read,  "  Though  I  walk  through  the  val- 
ley of  the  shadow  of  death,"  her  voice  whispered  the  re- 
frain, ''  I  will  fear  no  evil."  In  a  second  her  spirit  took  its 
flight  to  the  Summer  Land. 

It  broke  our  hearts  when  we  knew  that  the  dear  mother 
who  had  been  to  us  what  she  had  been  through  all  the  years, 
had  left  us  to  come  back  to  earth  no  more.  Like  little  chil- 
dren, we  fell  down  upon  our  knees  by  her  bed  and  wept 
out  our  hearts.  For  the  first  moment,  I  literally  fled  from 
the  room.  It  did  not  seem  that  I  could  bear  it.  My  dear 
brother,  older  than  I,  who  loved  her  as  much  as  I,  came  and 
comforted  me,  although  his  own  tender,  gentle  heart  was 
breaking  at  the  sense  of  our  deep  loss.  My  two  sisters  were 
there,  and  they  grieved  with  us.     More  like  her  than  any 


386       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

human  being  that  ever  lived  is  Mrs.  A.  J.  WilHams,  my  old- 
est sister,  so  tender-hearted,  so  susceptible  to  grief,  and  so 
gentle  in  her  nature,  so  sympathetic  in  her  spirit,  and  she 
sought,  when  our  dear  mother  had  passed  on  to  be  with 
God,  to  be  a  mother  to  us  all.    She  was  the  oldest  child. 

The  next  morning  we  followed  the  body  of  the  little 
mother  out  to  the  quiet  graveyard  and  laid  her  beside  our 
baby  boy,  who  had  gone  on  before.  There  her  body  rests 
today.  It  was  her  wish  that  there  should  be  no  ostentation 
at  her  funeral.  Her  wish  was  kept.  The  simple  service 
was  said  by  Rev.  N.  A.  Scale,  then  the  beloved  pastor  at 
Gatesville.  The  tenderness  and  sympathy,  the  kindness  and 
gentleness  of  his  noble  Christian  bearing,  the  true  words  he 
said  about  the  dear  one  gone,  will  never  be  forgotten. 

After  the  funeral,  we  made  our  way  back  to  our  dear 
father's  lonely  home.  My  sisters  lingered  with  him,  but  on 
account  of  the  urgency  of  the  task  that  rested  heavy  on  my 
heart  and  hands,  and  from  the  further  fact  that  I  had  al- 
ready, through  my  illness,  lost  so  much  of  valuable  time, 
I  hastened  back  to  Waco  to  plunge  again  into  the  thick  of 
the  battle  I  was  waging  for  the  conquest  of  Texas  for  Christ 
and  His  cause. 


LVIII 

AN  ACCIDENT  AND  MANY  INCIDENTS  IN  THE 
STATE  MISSION  WORK 

IT  was  some  months  before  I  became  entirely  well  again. 
I  confronted  the  absolute  necessity  of  continuing  my 
work,  while  slowly  regaining  my  wonted  vigor.  It  re- 
minded me  of  an  incident  in  the  life  of  Artemus  Ward.  It 
is  said  that  during  his  lecture  tour  in  California,  he,  upon 
one  occasion,  after  he  had  begun  his  address,  stopped  about 
the  middle  of  the  speech  and  said : 

"  Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  we  will  take  an  intermission 
of  twenty  minutes." 

The  audience  began  looking  at  one  another  in  mute  sur- 
prise, unable  by  any  means  to  fathom  this  mystifying  state- 
ment.   When  they  began  to  grow  impatient.  Ward  added : 

"Ah !  "  rubbing  his  hands  together,  "And,  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen, during  the  intermission  I  will  go  on  with  my  ad- 
dress ! " 

That  was  exactly  the  way  I  was  conducting  the  mission 
work.  During  the  intermission  the  work  went  on,  and  step 
by  step  began  to  show  an  increase  in  the  number  of  mission- 
aries and  in  general  results. 

August,  1890,  I  attended  Mt.  Zion  Association,  which 
met  some  ten  miles  from  Henderson,  Rusk  County.  Trav- 
eling with  me  to  the  meeting  was  J.  M.  Carroll,  who  repre- 
sented the  Foreign  Mission  Board  in  Texas.  A.  J.  Holt, 
who,  ad  interim,  was  filling  the  position  of  financial  secre- 
tary of  Baylor  University,  was  also  there.  I  spent  one  day 
and  night  there,  presenting  my  work  and  hastening  back  to 

387 


388       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Henderson  that  I  might  make  connection  at  Overton  and 
push  on  to  the  Austin  Association. 

I  was  accorded  the  Sunday  morning  hour  and  many  were 
the  responses  made  to  my  appeal  for  help  for  the  mission 
work. 

Monday  afternoon  I  again  reached  Henderson,  taking 
supper  with  Gus  Myers  and  his  family.  J.  M.  Carroll  also 
had  come  on  and  was  a  guest  in  the  Myers  home.  During 
the  sessions  of  the  Association,  he  had  been  greatly  helped 
also  by  the  delegates  from  the  churches  and  we  felt  very 
happy  over  the  results  of  the  meeting. 

Henderson  is  located  on  a  branch  line  run  out  from  Over- 
ton, a  distance  of  about  twenty  miles.  The  train  was  a 
freight,  with  a  passenger  coach  behind.  It  was  a  dreary, 
rainy  night.  We  did  not  get  out  of  Henderson  until  after 
dark,  and  were  twenty  minutes  late  in  starting,  and  the  en- 
gineer made,  perhaps,  too  fast  a  record  up  the  line.  When 
we  were  about  one  and  a  half  miles  out  of  Overton,  we  suf- 
fered one  of  the  most  disastrous  wrecks  ever  known  in 
Texas.  It  had  not  been  long  since  my  mother  had  died.  She 
was  much  in  my  thoughts,  and  time  and  time  again,  in  my 
dreams.  As  we  were  hastening  to  Overton,  I  was  thinking 
of  her  and  of  her  loving  wish,  often  expressed,  that  I  should 
be  a  useful  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  Having  had  such  a 
happy  experience  at  the  Mt.  Zion  Association,  and  being  so 
thankful  that  my  health  was  almost  regained,  I  was  think- 
ing that  if  my  mother  was  conscious  of  earthly  events,  it 
must  have  added  even  to  her  happiness  in  Heaven  to  know 
that  her  baby  boy  was  doing  his  very  best  for  the  cause  that 
was  always  dearest  to  her  gentle  heart. 

A  terrible  crash  came.  The  passenger  coach  twisted  off 
from  the  end  of  the  freight  train  and  turned  exactly  bottom 
upwards  into  a  ditch  six  feet  deep.  A  railroad  wreck  is 
indescribable.  The  after  events  may  be  detailed  by  the  en- 
terprising reporter,  but  the  immediate  experience  that  comes 


AN  ACCIDENT  AND  MANY  INCIDENTS     389 

to  the  victim  of  the  wreck  itself  cannot  be  put  in  words.  The 
first  that  I  knew  was  that  with  a  deafening  crash,  with  grips 
and  other  baggage  falling  down  upon  me,  I  was  trying  to 
clamber  to  my  feet,  and  felt  upon  me  the  sense  of  distinct 
disaster.  I  was  able  to  get  to  my  feet,  but  the  blood  was 
spurting  down  upon  my  shirt  front  in  quite  a  stream  and  the 
first  thought  that  came  to  me  was  this :  I  wonder  if  I  am 
killed.  Quickly  following  this  thought  was  the  consolatory 
reflection :   If  I  am  killed,  I  am  ready. 

I  found,  however,  that  I  could  walk.  I  could  not  raise 
my  hands  to  my  head,  although  my  head  was  bleeding  pro- 
fusely. At  first  I  thought  possibly  the  injury  to  my  head 
was  the  greatest.  I  knew  that  injuries  to  the  frontal  brain 
were  not  necessarily  immediately  fatal  and  might  not,  though 
serious,  deprive  the  victim  of  consciousness.  The  car  caught 
fire.  It  was  lighted  with  coal  oil  lamps  and  as  soon  as  these 
exploded  the  top  of  the  car,  now  the  floor  on  which  we  were 
walking,  began  to  burn. 

On  the  omnibus  that  night,  I  had  made  friends  with  a 
little  rotund  advance  agent  of  a  circus.  He  was  a  jolly  fel- 
low, with  a  kind  heart,  and  was  perhaps  the  least  injured 
of  any  passenger  on  the  train.  When  he  saw  me  seeking 
the  exit  without  my  baggage,  he  asked : 

"  Where  are  your  grips  ?  " 

I  said,  "  I  do  not  know,  and  even  if  I  found  them  I  could 
not  carry  them.    I  am  crippled  in  my  arms." 

Out  of  the  generosity  of  this  splendid  fellow's  nature,  he 
ran  back  even  at  the  risk  of  being  seriously  burned,  secured 
my  grips  and  brought  them  out.  It  seemed  a  miracle  that 
the  car  door  was  not  bound,  but  it  opened  promptly.  All 
the  passengers  were  rescued.  There  were  twenty-five  in 
that  car  and  twenty-four  of  them  were  injured,  though  no 
one  was  killed. 

I  had  not  yet  been  able  to  discover  the  extent  of  my  in- 
juries.   I  found  that  the  loss  of  blood  was  not  as  great  as 


390       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

I  at  first  thought  it  might  be,  and  on  account  of  the  fact  that 
I  was  only  suffering  from  a  headache  and  did  not  seem  in 
any  wise  to  be  greatly  weakened  or  to  have  a  feeling  of  van- 
ishing consciousness.  I  was  sure  I  had  not  been  seriously 
injured.  Very  soon  they  loaded  those  that  were  injured 
worst  upon  the  engine  and  took  us  to  Overton.  Six  of  us 
went  on  this  first  trip  and  were  huddled  together  in  the  big- 
gest room  of  the  little  Overton  hotel.  Very  soon  the  sur- 
geon, a  Dr.  Tucker,  a  man  of  massive  frame,  splendid  intel- 
lect and  steady  nerve,  was  with  us  to  dress  our  wounds.  He 
came  to  me  without  any  great  delay  and  upon  examination 
found  that  I  had  suffered  a  contusion  of  the  frontal  bone 
above  the  eye,  and  that  a  small  artery  had  been  severed.  His 
first  work  was  to  ligate  the  artery,  take  some  stitches  in  this 
wound  and  close  it  up.  This  was  done  without  an  anes- 
thetic. He  also  found  that  my  left  collar  bone  was  broken, 
and  that  both  of  my  arms  were  very  severely  bruised.  The 
greatest  pain  I  suffered  was  on  account  of  the  injury  to  the 
muscles  of  my  arms.  The  flesh  turned  as  black  as  ebony, 
and  the  ache  was  indescribably  awful. 

After  my  wounds  had  been  dressed,  my  beloved  friend 
and  brother,  A.  J.  Holt,  came  into  the  room.  He  had  come 
across  the  country  in  a  private  conveyance  and  reached  the 
hotel  just  a  few  minutes  after  he  had  heard  of  the  accident. 
He  was  nobly  kind  to  me  on  that  memorable  night.  He  sat 
up  with  me  all  night.  I  did  not  sleep.  I  had  suffered  a 
very  severe  shock,  and  was  in  intense  pain.  The  surgeon 
had  given  me  an  opiate,  it  was  true,  which  helped  somewhat, 
but  it  did  not  serve  to  entirely  quiet  me  or  to  give  me  sleep. 

Next  morning  before  daylight,  the  claim  agent,  T.  N. 
Jones,  of  Tyler,  was  on  the  ground  visiting  the  injured  and 
settling  their  claims  for  damages.  He  told  me  he  would  be 
in  Waco  soon  to  see  me.  He  knew  that  an  annual  pass  had 
been  issued  to  me  on  account  of  my  position  as  superintend- 
ent of  the  Texas  Baptist  Mission  Work.  It  was  the  custom  in 


AN  ACCIDENT  AND  MANY  INCIDENTS     391 

those  days  to  furnish  missionary  secretaries  and  all  general 
agents  of  religious  organizations  with  annual  passes  on  the 
railroads.  That  was  a  happy  time  before  the  Socialistic 
nonsense  of  the  present  day,  which  forbids  the  issuance  of 
transportation  for  these  benevolent  purposes. 

I  caught  an  early  morning  train,  A.  J.  Holt  journeying 
with  me.  He  was  kindness  itself,  and  as  long  as  I  live  I 
shall  never  forget  this  Good  Samaritan  Christian  who  was 
so  helpful  to  me  in  my  hours  of  distress. 

We  reached  Waco  late  in  the  afternoon.  I  had  wired 
ahead  for  my  wife  to  meet  me.  Meantime,  by  some  means, 
she  had  heard  of  the  accident  and  was  greatly  alarmed. 

This  accident  ended  my  active  field  work  for  that  con- 
vention year.  I  was  unable  to  do  any  work  of  any  kind  for 
several  days,  but  within  about  ten  days  I  was  at  my  desk 
working  with  my  right  hand  and  attending  to  such  duties 
as  of  necessity  pressed  upon  me.  The  convention  was  to 
meet  in  October  at  Waxahachie,  and  it  was  absolutely  es- 
sential that  I  have  the  reports  ready  and  round  up  all  the 
odds  and  ends  of  the  work  so  that  a  full  and  complete  state- 
ment of  every  item  of  the  year's  achievements  might  be 
properly  recorded. 

T.  N.  Jones  did  come  on  to  Waco  in  a  few  days  and  to 
my  home,  with  the  statement  that  he  had  come  to  tender 
me  a  check  in  payment  of  the  damages  I  had  suffered  in 
this  accident.  I  recited  to  him  what  he  already  knew — that 
I  was  traveling  on  a  pass.  I  told  him  I  had  been  visited  by 
two  lawyer  friends  of  mine  who  desired  that  I  should  file 
suit  against  the  company  for  heavy  damages,  but  that  I  had 
declined  to  do  so.  It  is  a  fact  not  generally  known  that 
whereas  a  passenger  who  rides  upon  a  pass  is  asked  to  sign 
a  waiver  of  all  rights  in  the  event  of  accident  or  damage  to 
his  property  or  person,  it  is  at  the  same  time  true  that  these 
rights  are  inalienable  and  cannot  be  legally  waived.  I  made 
it  plain  to  Mr.  Jones  that  I  was  familiar  with  the  law  and 


392       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

that  I  also  had  due  respect  to  the  equities  in  the  matter.  I 
knew  the  pass  had  not  been  issued  to  me  personally,  but  on 
account  of  my  connection  with  a  great  work.  I  informed 
him  very  candidly  that  I  had  not  filed  any  claim  for  damages 
and  did  not  purpose  to  do  so.  He  repeated  that  he  had 
come  to  reimburse  me,  and  that  his  instructions  were  ab- 
solutely mandatory.  He  said  that  he  would  give  me  a 
check,  and  after  some  further  discussion  wrote  out  a  check 
for  $i,ooo,  which  I  accepted. 

I  am  detaining  this  incident  at  some  length  because  ene- 
mies of  mine  in  later  years  made  a  great  ado  over  the  fact 
that  although  I  was  traveling  on  a  pass,  I  had  accepted  pay- 
ment of  damages  from  a  railway  company  on  which  I  was 
thus  traveling.  I  have  never  felt  that  I  did  wrong  and  do 
not  feel  so  now.  I  would  have  felt  it  wrong  to  have  filed 
suit  against  the  company,  or  to  have  even  sent  in  a  claim  to 
them,  but,  under  all  the  circumstances,  I  feel  that  I  did 
right. 


LIX 
A  GROWING  MISSIONARY  WORK 

WHEN  the  record  of  the  year's  work  had  been  made 
up,  it  was  shown  that  a  great  increase  was  regis- 
tered above  the  year  before.  The  record  of  this 
increase  can  be  found  in  the  minutes  of  the  Baptist  General 
Convention  of  Texas  of  that  year.  Inasmuch  as  thts  is  an 
autobiography  and  not  a  history,  I  do  not  record  these  here, 
but  I  am  thankful  that  by  the  blessing  of  God  I  was  enabled, 
even  under  the  untoward  conditions  to  which  I  have  hitherto 
referred,  to  show  a  distinct  advance  upon  anything  that  the 
mission  work  of  Texas  Baptists  had  ever  known. 

In  October  the  Convention  met  at  Waxahachie.  I  was 
not  yet  well,  but  it  was  imperative  that  I  should  be  present. 
My  good  wife  went  to  help  take  care  of  me.  In  the  journey 
I  suffered  a  new  fracture  of  this  recalcitrant  collar  bone,  and 
had  to  start  all  over  again.  I,  however,  never  regretted  this, 
because  I  have  always  looked  back  upon  the  events  of  the 
Waxahachie  Convention  with  unfeigned  joy. 

There  was  wide  sympathy  throughout  the  State  for  my 
crippled  condition.  My  disability  had  carried  with  it  an 
appeal  for  the  co-operation  and  sympathy  of  the  brother- 
hood which  could  not  perhaps  have  been  elicited  in  any  other 
way.  The  result  was  that  all  did  their  utmost  to  help  me, 
and  when  I  asked  for  pledges  for  the  ensuing  year's  work, 
the  responses  were  as  gratifying  as  any  man  could  wish 
to  see. 

I  pause  to  make  a  statement  here  concerning  my  method 
of  collecting  missionary  funds.     It  was  a  good-humored 

393 


394       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

method.  I  never  hesitated  to  recite  a  humorous  story  if  it 
was  apropos.  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  us  can  assume  an 
arbitrary  attitude  on  this  question.  Not  long  ago  I  heard 
a  distinguished  brother  say  that  he  had  no  patience  with 
these  fun-making  collectors  of  mission  funds.  Of  course 
not,  the  reason  being  that  that  is  not  his  way.  I  am  not 
quite  so  narrow  as  that.  I  am  perfectly  willing  for  a  pastor 
or  a  secretary  to  conduct  a  collection  just  as  he  conducts  a 
funeral  if  he  wants  to.  That  is  within  the  range  of  his 
rights,  and  no  one  has  any  right  to  say  him  nay.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  some  of  us  who  by  nature  are  fitted 
for  raising  missionary  funds  in  the  happy-hearted  way,  and 
they  will  cling  to  this  method  as  long  as  life  lasts. 

It  was  after  my  collection  at  the  Waxahachie  Convention, 
when  I  had  left  the  church,  and  was  greeting  the  brethren, 
that  Rev.  J.  W.  Staton,  now  of  Brownwood,  said  to  me : 

'*  CranfiU,  you  are  the  most  popular  and  best  beloved  Bap- 
tist in  Texas." 

That  alarmed  me.  I  remembered  immediately  that  quota- 
tion which  says,  "  Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  shall  speak 
well  of  you !  "  It  gratified  me  deeply,  of  course,  but  there 
was  in  it  to  me  a  note  of  warning  from  which  I  have  never 
escaped.  The  triumphal  entry  did  not  precede  the  cruci- 
fixion by  many  days.  The  sorrows  of  the  after  years  had 
not  yet  cast  their  baleful  shadows  across  my  path,  but  I  was 
unconsciously  approaching  them,  even  at  this  very  hour. 

I  was  re-elected  to  the  secretaryship  by  a  unanimous  vote, 
and  returned  home  with  a  renewed  sense  of  gratitude  to 
God  and  to  the  brotherhood.  While  what  was  known  as  the 
Hayden-Hanks  trouble  was  rife  in  the  State,  it  had  not  in 
any  wise  at  that  time  served  to  even  suggest  a  division  in 
our  ranks. 

The  Western  Baptist  and  Texas  Baptist  and  Herald  were 
both  being  published  at  Dallas.  While  Hay  den  had  been 
enabled  to  do  Hanks  incalculable  harm,  he  had  not  unhorsed 


A  GROWING  MISSIONARY  WORK         395 

him  as  a  denominational  leader,  nor  had  he  been  able  to 
compass  his  resignation  of  the  pastorate  of  the  First  Church. 
The  brethren  over  the  State  were  measurably  lining  up  as 
between  these  two  men,  but  on  account  of  his  great  prestige 
as  editor  of  the  leading  Baptist  publication  then  extant  in 
Texas,  Hayden  had  a  vast  following,  and  if  he  had  stopped 
his  trouble-making  even  then,  he  could  have  saved  himself 
and  the  denomination  from  the  direful  strife  into  which  they 
were  afterwards  plunged. 

It  was  during  my  first  year  of  incumbency  in  the  secre- 
taryship that  the  question  of  the  work  of  women  in  our 
Texas  denominational  affairs  was  forced  to  the  front.  Miss 
Mina  S.  Everett,  who  had  been  selected  by  the  recently  or- 
ganized Baptist  Women  Mission  Workers  of  the  State  as 
Corresponding  Secretary  of  their  Convention,  was  traveling 
in  the  interest  of  that  new  line  of  effort.  Our  Board  was 
asked  to  co-operate  with  that  Board.  The  controversy  con- 
cerning the  woman's  work  waxed  ardent,  but  never  un- 
pleasant. The  stalwart  men  on  the  Board  who  opposed  co- 
operation with  the  new  movement  were  B.  H.  Carroll  and 
W.  H.  Jenkins.  On  the  other  side  were  R.  C.  Burleson  and 
myself.  After  a  full,  free  and  fair  discussion,  the  woman's 
movement  was  endorsed,  the  Board  deciding  to  co-operate 
therewith. 

It  thus  fell  out  that  Miss  Mina  S.  Everett,  one  of  the 
choicest  spirits  Texas  Baptists  ever  knew,  went  forth  to 
represent  the  State  Mission  Board  and  the  Board  of  the 
B.  W.  M.  W.  of  Texas.  Miss  Everett  did  most  valuable 
service,  and  it  was  through  her  indefatigable  labors  that  the 
magnificent  foundation  for  the  present  high  success  of  the 
Baptist  women's  movement  in  Texas  was  laid. 


LX 
PRIVATE  BUSINESS  MATTERS 

THE  home  I  bought  in  Waco  out  of  the  proceeds  of 
the  sale  of  the  Gatesville  home  was  on  the  comer  of 
Sixth  and  Webster  Streets.  It  consisted  of  a  tastily 
built  four-room  cottage  and  a  lot  60x150  feet.  The  price 
was  $1300.  After  having  paid  out  the  balance  on  the  place, 
I  decided  to  improve  the  rest  of  the  lot,  so  I  borrowed 
money  at  12  per  cent  interest  from  the  Waco  Building  Asso- 
ciation and  built  a  three-room  house  fronting  on  Sixth 
Street.  Soon  thereafter  I  bought  the  adjoining  lot  on  Web- 
ster Street  from  W.  H.  Long  for  $500,  and  arranged  with 
the  Waco  Building  Association  to  build  two  houses  on  this 
lot,  thus  adding  $30  a  month  to  my  gross  income.  When  I 
accepted  the  position  of  Superintendent  of  Missions,  T 
bought  another  property  which  had  been  contracted  for  by 
A.  J.  Holt.  The  price  was  $4500.  I  moved  my  family  into 
this  home,  and  rented  my  cottage  on  Sixth  and  Webster 
Streets,  having  in  the  meantime  added  a  room,  thus  making 
it  a  five-room  house.  I  received  $20  a  month  from  this 
house  and  $30  for  the  other  three  houses.  I  was  thus  en- 
abled to  pay  the  monthly  installments  to  the  Waco  Building 
Association,  and  ultimately  I  owned  the  Sixth  and  Webster 
Street  property  free  of  debt,  though  I  never  did  pay  out 
the  original  mortgage  of  $2250  against  the  Speight  Street 
property  bought  of  A.  J.  Holt.  I  still  owned  this  Speight 
Street  property  in  1897  when  I  was  preparing  to  move  to 
Dallas,  and  closed  it  out  at  a  great  sacrifice. 

In  the  meantime,  I  had  bought  a  home  on  Provident 

396 


PRIVATE  BUSINESS  MATTERS  397 

Hill  from  Samuel  Colcord  for  $5400.  There  was  an  orig- 
inal mortgage  of  $2700  against  the  property,  which  I  never 
discharged,  but  by  making  a  small  cash  payment,  I  suc- 
ceeded in  retaining  that  home  until  I  left  Waco,  finally  clos- 
ing it  out  at  the  price  of  the  first  mortgage  just  as  I  closed 
out  the  Speight  Street  property  on  the  same  terms.  I  fin- 
ally sold  the  Sixth  and  Webster  Street  property  to  my 
brother  for  $5700. 

In  addition  to  these  real  estate  transactions  in  Waco,  I 
traded  in  some  lots  in  South  Waco  which  I  acquired  from 
S.  L.  Morris.  When  I  sold  The  Waco  Advance,  I  did  not 
sell  the  little  printing  outfit  which  I  had.  It  consisted  of 
some  imposing  stones,  type  and  one  or  two  small  job  presses, 
which  had  been  acquired  in  order  that  we  might  do  our  own 
job  work.  I  traded  this  property  to  S.  L.  Morris  for  two 
lots  in  what  he  called  Bagby  Addition  to  the  city  of  Waco, 
subsequently  selling  one  of  them  to  the  Western  Newspaper 
Union  of  Dallas  to  clean  up  some  indebtedness  there,  and 
the  other  to  the  Scarfif  &  O'Connor  Co.  to  pay  some  in- 
debtedness to  them  for  paper  or  some  other  printing  material 
which  I  had  consumed  in  publishing  The  Waco  Advance. 

I  also  bought  a  lot  on  Seventh  and  James  Street  with 
money  I  borrowed  from  Mrs.  B.  H.  Carroll.  She  loaned 
me  $500  for  this  purpose.  At  the  time  that  lot  was  pur- 
chased, I  meant  at  some  future  period  to  construct  a  new 
home  on  the  lot  and  live  there.  I  felt  that  I  could  close  out 
my  Speight  Street  home  at  a  reasonable  value,  which  I 
could  have  done  at  one  time,  and  that  I  would  then  be  able 
to  build  on  the  new  lot  on  Seventh  and  James.  However, 
this  plan  never  matured.  I  subsequently  sold  the  Seventh 
and  James  Street  lot,  and  by  the  time  I  was  ready  to  leave 
Waco,  which  I  did  on  January  27,  1898,  I  had  closed  out  or 
arranged  to  close  out  all  of  my  Waco  holdings. 


LXI 
MORE  ABOUT  THE  STATE  MISSION  WORK 

THE  Convention  met  in  October  of  1891  at  Waco.  The 
report  at  the  Waco  Convention  showed  a  still  fur- 
ther increase  in  all  the  essential  elements  of  the 
work. 

While  the  Hayden-Hanks  trouble  was  disturbing  the 
denomination  quite  considerably,  there  was  as  yet  no  present 
nor  prospective  line  of  cleavage  between  our  denominational 
forces.  However,  there  was  a  growing  distrust  of  S.  A. 
Hayden  as  a  denominational  leader.  There  was  talk  even 
then  of  in  some  way  rescuing  the  Baptist  work  of  the  state 
from  his  hands.  While  he  lost  very  greatly  when  A.  J. 
Holt  was  eliminated  from  the  Texas  work,  he  at  the  same 
time  was  quite  resourceful  in  certain  ways  and  had  managed 
to  keep  as  his  friends  many  leading  brethren,  among  these 
being  R.  C.  Burleson  and  B.  H.  Carroll.  At  that  time,  these 
brethren  and  R.  C.  Buckner  were  the  most  influential  Bap- 
tists in  Texas.  The  Western  Baptist  was  growing  in  cir- 
culation and  influence.  As  Hayden's  assaults  upon  Hanks 
increased  in  bitterness  and  virulence,  The  Western  Baptist 
list  increased.  While  that  paper  had  not  become  in  any 
sense  a  journalistic  leader  in  the  Baptist  thought  or  plans 
of  the  state,  it  had  a  very  considerable  subscription  list  and 
throughout  the  state  there  was  growing  up  for  the  publi- 
cation and  for  Hanks  a  distinct  sympathy. 

It  was  easy  at  the  Waco  Convention  for  me  to  take 
pledges  and  subscriptions  for  the  ensuing  year.  One  inci- 
dent in  that  collection  I  shall  never  forget.     I  was  going 

398 


I 


MORE  ABOUT  THE  MISSION  WORK       399 

ahead  in  my  own  way  asking  for  these  pledges  when  a 
brother  arose  and  said: 

"  Brother  Cranfill,  put  me  down  for  $io." 

I  have  a  poor  memory  for  names.  My  memory  of  dates 
and  figures  is  phenomenal,  and  I  have  a  splendid  recollec- 
tion of  events,  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  remember 
names.  I  knew  the  brother  who  made  this  pledge  perfectly 
well.  He  was  a  Waco  man,  but  for  the  life  of  me  I  could 
not  connect  him  up  with  his  name.  Therefore  as  an  expe- 
dient, I  said,  "  How  do  you  spell  your  name  ?  " 

He  arose  to  his  full  height  (and  I  think  it  was  not  an 
inch  less  than  six  feet)  and  said,  "  J-o-n-e-s."  That  brought 
down  the  house. 

If  the  occasion  had  hitherto  been  as  solemn  as  Watson's 
Prophetic  Interpretations,  the  audience  would  have  laughed. 

In  many  respects  the  year  1891  was  a  most  eventful 
one  for  Southern  Baptists.  That  year  the  Southern  Bap- 
tist Convention  met  at  Birmingham,  Ala.  During  the  Bir- 
mingham Convention,  the  sainted  F.  H.  Kerfoot  asked  me  to 
aid  him  in  taking  the  collection  for  the  Southern  Baptist 
Theological  Seminary.  Dr.  Kerfoot  in  the  intervening 
months  had  been  a  guest  in  my  home  in  Waco.  All  of  the 
family  were  away  when  he  came,  and  so  we  "'  batched  '* 
together.  He  insisted  very  lovingly  that  I  should  attend 
the  Southern  Baptist  Theological  Seminary.  He  thought 
it  would  be  wise  for  me  to  resign  my  missionary  work,  sell 
my  home  and  invest  the  proceeds  in  a  theological  education. 
His  visit  and  his  arguments  impressed  me  greatly,  but  I  did 
not  see  how  the  matter  could  be  managed.  I  was  already 
in  a  most  useful  work,  and  while  I  felt  keenly,  as  I  have 
always  felt,  the  deprivation  of  early  opportunities,  I  at  the 
same  time  feared  that  even  after  I  had  completed  a  theo- 
logical course  I  would  perhaps  not  be  able  to  find  a  more 
useful  field  of  labor  than  I  at  that  time  enjoyed.     Those 


400       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

were  the  grand  days  of  John  A.  Broadus,  J.  B.  Hawthorne, 
W.  E.  Hatcher,  F.  H.  Kerfoot  and  others  of  their  type. 

But  back  to  the  Birmingham  Convention.  At  that  meet- 
ing the  Sunday  School  Board  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Con- 
vention was  organized.  I  was  among  the  number  who 
doubted  the  Wisdom  of  its  organization.  I  was  not  un- 
friendly to  the  plan,  but  I  was  fearful  that  it  might  not 
succeed.  We  had  then  at  Philadelphia,  as  we  have  now, 
the  American  Baptist  Publication  Society,  and  all  of  their 
publications  then  known  to  me  were  of  a  kind  to  commend 
themselves  to  Southern  Baptists.  That  was  before  the  day 
of  that  looseness  in  doctrine  that  has  since  become  the 
fashion  in  the  East,  and  so  far  as  I  had  at  that  time  been 
apprised,  the  American  Baptist  Publication  Society  had  not 
become  infected  by  what  is  known  as  the  higher  criticism. 

One  of  the  prominent  figures  at  the  Birmingham  Con- 
vention was  W.  R.  Harper,  president  of  Chicago  Univer- 
sity, a  new  institution  recently  founded  through  the  munifi- 
cence of  John  D.  Rockefeller.  Dr.  Harper's  theme  at 
that  meeting  was  *'  The  Prophecy  of  Joel."  He  made  a  dry 
but  a  rather  interesting  talk.  I  personally  could  not  see 
much  in  it,  but  then  I  was  not  a  theologian  nor  a  university 
man. 

Following  the  adjournment  of  the  Southern  Baptist 
Convention,  on  the  special  invitation  of  my  friend,  D.  J. 
Kelley,  I  went  to  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  for  a  three  weeks  vaca- 
tion. Kelley  had  been  the  manager  of  the  Western  News- 
paper Union  in  Texas  when  I  had  edited  The  Waco  Ad- 
vance. I  bought  my  printing  material  and  a  lot  of  stuff 
of  one  kind  or  another  from  his  concern,  and  through  our 
contact  in  those  days  we  became  fast  friends.  In  1891 
he  was  the  agent  of  several  large  corporations  in  the  East, 
enjoying  a  good  salary,  so  he  invited  me  to  join  him  at  Cin- 
cinnati at  his  expense  so  that  I  might  have  a  vacation  and 
at  the  same  time  we  might  look  around  together.     It  was  a 


MORE  ABOUT  THE  MISSION  WORK       401 

very  pleasant  recreation  for  me,  and  I  have  never  ceased 
to  be  grateful  for  the  kindness  of  heart  and  the  generosity 
of  spirit  that  prompted  this  good  friend  to  tender  me  this 
courtesy. 

Soon  after  the  adjournment  of  the  1891  Convention  at 
Waco,  I  was  visited  by  my  beloved  friend,  M.  V.  Smith. 
He  came  to  insist  that  I  resign  the  mission  work  and  join 
him  in  the  establishment  of  a  peace  paper  for  the  Baptists 
of  Texas.  He  felt  that  the  cause  had  begun  to  suffer  most 
seriously  from  the  Hayden-Hanks  trouble,  and  that  unless 
something  was  done,  the  denomination  would  be  hopelessly 
and  disastrously  divided.  This  impressed  me  at  the  time, 
but  not  sufficiently  to  elicit  from  me  anything  encouraging 
in  the  direction  of  this  journalistic  enterprise. 

I  was  happy  in  my  missionary  work,  was  succeeding 
grandly,  was  acceptable  as  secretary  to  all  the  Baptists  of 
the  State,  and  felt  that  I  could  not,  by  re-entering  the  field 
of  journalism,  do  a  work  that  would  be  more  far-reaching 
for  good  than  that  over  which  I  now  presided. 

From  time  to  time  I  was  having  much  trouble  with  my 
eyes.  Dr.  R.  H.  Chilton,  then  the  leading  oculist  of  Texas, 
was  very  kind  to  me,  and  his  treatment  helped  me  much. 
I  came  to  Dallas  many  times  to  have  him  give  me  treatment. 


i 


LXII 
ANOTHER  PLUNGE  INTO  JOURNALISM 

WHEN  S.  A.  Hayden  took  over  the  Texas  Baptist 
Herald  and  consolidated  the  two  papers,  he  forth- 
with secured  for  the  masthead  of  his  editorial 
page  a  wonderful  list  of  editors  and  associate  editors,  among 
them  J.  B.  Link,  F.  M.  Law  and  M.  V.  Smith.  He  had  all 
along  the  name  of  S.  J.  Anderson,  who  was  his  associate 
much  of  the  time,  and  his  faithful  ally  all  the  time.  He  set 
great  store  by  appearances,  and  the  identification  of  these 
leading  Baptist  preachers  and  pastors  with  his  publication 
seemed  very  pleasing  to  him.  All  the  time,  however,  an  un- 
dercurrent of  denominational  sentiment  was  growing  which 
was  utterly  opposed  to  Hayden  and  his  methods.  His  as- 
saults upon  Hanks  and  his  evident  purpose  to  rule  the  de- 
nomination or  subjugate  every  man  who  in  any  wise  opposed 
his  policies,  led  thoughtful  leaders  to  distrust  him.  Through 
all  these  years,  however,  he  retained  two  friends  in  R.  C. 
Burleson  and  B.  H.  Carroll.  I  was  noncommittal  on  these 
issues.  My  convictions  were  very  deep,  but  I  held  to  the 
policy  of  attempting  to  serve  all  of  the  brotherhood  impar- 
tially, irrespective  of  local  or  State-wide  differences. 

M.  V.  Smith,  of  Belton,  was  one  of  my  very  dearest 
friends.  Often  in  his  home  and  frequently  in  communi- 
cation and  conference  with  him,  I  necessarily  learned  much 
of  his  attitude  of  mind  and  heart.  He  was  greatly  dis- 
turbed concerning  our  denominational  situation.  He  felt 
that  the  more  influence  Hayden  secured,  the  worse  it  would 
ultimately  be  for  the  denomination.     He  thought  the  only 

402 


I 


ANOTHER  PLUNGE  INTO  JOURNALISM    403 

way  to  save  the  Baptist  cause  in  Texas  was  to  build  up 
what  he  called  a  peace  paper — a  paper  that  would  conserve 
all  the  interests  of  the  brotherhood  and  at  the  same  time 
steer  clear  of  personalities  and  denominational  feuds.  He 
was  familiar  with  my  work  as  a  newspaper  man,  and  sought 
by  the  most  winsome  and  persuasive  eloquence  to  convince 
me  that  it  was  my  duty  to  resign  my  work  as  superintendent 
of  missions  and  again  take  up  the  work  of  journalism,  this 
time  as  editor  of  a  Baptist  paper.  The  Western  Baptist 
was  doing  well  in  Dallas.  Its  list  was  increasing,  and  in 
exact  ratio  as  Dr.  Hayden  alienated  former  friends,  The 
Western  Baptist  grew.  R.  T.  Hanks  was  joint  editor  of 
the  paper  with  Lewis  Holland,  and  of  necessity,  the  paper 
set  forth  the  Hanks  side  of  the  Hayden-Hanks  controversy. 
Finally  M.  V.  Smith  convinced  me  that  he  was  right, 
so  it  came  about  that  we  concluded  negotiations  for  the 
purchase  of  The  Western  Baptist.  I  gave  notice  to  the 
State  Mission  Board,  through  its  president,  B.  H.  Carroll, 
that  with  March  31,  1892,  my  incumbency  as  superinten- 
dent of  the  Texas  Baptist  mission  work  would  cease.  Great 
regret  was  expressed  on  account  of  my  resignation.  When 
the  Board  which  accepted  my  resignation  met,  resolutions 
were  adopted  highly  commending  my  work  and  bidding  me 
Godspeed  in  the  Master's  service  in  whatever  field  I  should 
henceforth  labor. 

The  negotiations  for  the  purchase  of  The  Western  Bap- 
tist were  not  difficult  to  carry  to  a  successful  culmination. 
The  paper  had  6000  subscribers  and,  except  a  press,  suf- 
ficient printing  material  for  making  the  paper.  The  price 
was  $3,000  cash.  The  attorney  who  represented  Holland  and 
Hanks  in  the  transaction  was  W.  L.  Williams,  one  of  the 
noblest,  truest  and  biggest  men  Texas  Baptists  have  ever 
known. 

M.  V.  Smith  and  I  had  no  money,  but  he  had  a  long 
time  friend  in  one  of  his  old  deacons,  H.  J.  Chamberlin, 


404       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

from  whom  he  borrowed  $4,000.  Out  of  this  we  paid 
$3,000  to  Holland  and  Hanks,  retaining  $1,000  as  operat- 
ing capital. 

Pending  these  transactions  J.  B.  Gambrell  came  to  Bel- 
ton  to  assist  M.  V.  Smith  in  a  series  of  meetings.  Dr.  Gam- 
brell was  at  that  time  employed  in  denominational  work  in 
Mississippi.  During  the  period  of  Dr.  Gambrell's  stay  in 
Texas,  he  agreed  to  join  us  in  the  publication  of  the  new 
paper,  not  then  named,  if  he  could  sever  his  Mississippi  rela- 
tions without  in  any  wise  doing  hurt  to  the  cause  there.  He 
also  added  that  he  would  need  the  approval  of  his  wife  in 
such  a  very  grave  matter.  So  sure,  however,  was  he  that 
he  would  be  one  with  us  in  this  enterprise,  that  he  wrote 
some  of  the  first  editorials  that  appeared  in  the  new  publi- 
cation. In  the  meantime,  the  purchase  had  been  consum- 
mated and  we  had  actually  taken  charge.  We  changed  the 
name  of  the  paper  from  The  Western  Baptist  to  The  Texas 
Baptist  Standard,  retaining  the  volume  and  number  of  The 
Western  Baptist.  The  files  of  that  period  are  not  now  in  my 
possession,  but  I  am  sure  that  we  began  The  Standard  in 
Volume  4,  and  inasmuch  as  our  first  number  was  dated 
March  i,  1892,  I  take  it  that  it  was  Volume  4,  No.  13.  It  will 
be  recalled  that  The  Western  Baptist  was  the  outgrowth  of 
The  Baptist  News,  which  had  been  started  in  December, 
1888,  at  Honey  Grove,  by  Lewis  Holland  and  John  H. 
Boyet.  When  The  Baptist  News  moved  to  Dallas,  it  changed 
its  name,  but  not  its  volume  and  number,  so  that  The  Bap- 
tist Standard  still  bears  the  volume  and  number  that  began 
with  the  establishment  of  The  Baptist  News. 

The  Standard  continued  for  a  time  at  Dallas,  though  I 
lived  at  Waco,  and  M.  V.  Smith  lived  at  Helton.  There 
were  three  printers  connected  with  the  publication,  M.  C 
Howard,  Horace  Lawrence  and  Miss  Daisy  Edmonds.  How- 
ard and  Lawrence  were  men  of  families.  Miss  Edmonds 
was  a  young  girl  depending  upon  herself  for  her  support. 


ANOTHER  PLUNGE  INTO  JOURNALISM    405 

I  had  not  inquired  when  we  bought  the  publication  whether 
the  office  was  run  by  union  printers  or  not.  It  transpired, 
however,  that  these  were  non-union  printers,  (and  I  am  de- 
tailing these  facts  here  for  the  reason  that  later  on  they  be- 
came of  some  importance  in  the  history  of  the  enterprise). 
When  the  Mission  Board  met  and  accepted  my  resignation, 
they  elected  J.  M.  Carroll  as  my  successor.  Another  step 
of  momentous  importance  in  the  work  of  Texas  Baptists  at 
this  juncture  was  the  consolidation  of  all  the  interests  in 
the  hands  of  one  man  under  one  Board.  Hitherto  we  had 
had  a  Foreign  Mission  secretary  in  Texas  in  the  person  of 
J.  M.  Carroll,  a  Home  Mission  representative  in  the  person 
of  R.  R.  White,  and  a  State  Mission  secretary.  Under  the 
new  arrangement,  two  men  were  eliminated,  and  all  the  work 
was  placed  in  the  hands  of  J.  M.  Carroll. 

Texas  Baptists  have  never  known  a  truer,  nobler  spirit 
than  J.  M.  Carroll.  His  brother,  B.  H.  Carroll,  was  for 
more  than  a  generation  the  Colossus  among  the  Baptists  of 
Texas  and  the  South.  I  doubt  if  he  has  had  a  superior  in 
the  Baptist  world  since  the  days  of  the  apostles.  J.  M.  Car- 
roll is  also  a  big  man.  In  matters  of  detail,  statistics,  organ- 
izing ability  and  secretarial  gifts,  he  has  had  no  superior 
in  our  ranks. 

At  his  request  I  continued  to  assist  in  the  mission  work 
for  several  months.  I  was  first  placed  upon  a  commission 
basis,  but  my  collections  were  so  large  that  J.  M.  Carroll  and 
I  agreed  that  I  was  receiving  too  much  remuneration  for 
the  service  rendered.  I  was  then  put  upon  a  salary  of  $125 
a  month  and  expenses,  with  the  agreement  that  I  was  sim- 
ply to  give  my  Sundays  to  the  State  Mission  work  and  to 
be  free  during  the  week  to  look  after  the  interests  of  the 
new  paper. 

This  new  turn  in  matters  journalistic  among  Texas  Bap- 
tists created  a  great  stir — such  a  stir  as  had  not  been  known 
in  my  day.    At  first,  S.  A.  Hayden  was  patronizing  and  ap- 


406       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

parently  indifferent.  He  did  not  seem  to  fear  the  new  can- 
didate for  Baptist  patronage. 

That  year  the  Southern  Baptist  Convention  met  at  At- 
lanta, Georgia.  We  issued  a  special  edition  to  be  distributed 
on  the  train  going  out  from  Texas  to  Atlanta.  Many  were 
the  favorable  comments  upon  the  appearance  of  the  new 
paper,  which  came  out  that  week  in  a  new  dress  with  a  new 
head,  and  was  in  every  way  a  splendid  specimen  of  journal- 
istic enterprise. 

The  brethren  were  very  kind  to  me  en  route,  as  they  had 
been  for  years.  The  delegates,  led  by  A.  M.  Simms,  bought 
for  me  a  fine  gold-headed  cane,  which,  on  reaching  Atlanta, 
was  appropriately  inscribed.  On  the  train  this  cane  was 
presented  to  me  by  J.  Morgan  Wells,  pastor  of  the  First 
Church  of  Fort  Worth.  He  began  the  presentation  speech 
as  follows: 

"  Cranfill,  we  are  going  to  cane  you !  " 

Then  followed  one  of  his  splendid  and  eloquent  tributes. 
He  did  everything  in  a  majestic  way,  and  his  speech  on  this 
occasion  was  no  exception. 


LXIII 
AN  EVENTFUL  YEAR  IN  PROHIBITION  WORK 

THE  year  1892  was  to  me  a  most  eventful  one  in  an- 
other way.  While  I  had  sold  my  prohibition  paper, 
I  had  not  at  any  time  lost  interest  in  the  great  cause 
for  which  I  so  long  had  fought.  I  was  still  an  enthusiastic 
advocate  of  the  National  Prohibition  party,  and  was  in  con- 
stant touch  with  the  leaders  of  the  movement.  I  was  sent 
as  a  delegate  in  June,  1892,  to  the  Prohibition  National  Con- 
vention at  Cincinnati,  Ohio.  It  was  a  memorable  gathering 
— ^perhaps  the  largest  National  prohibition  meeting  that  had 
up  to  that  time  convened.  Texas  was  represented  by  some 
remarkably  splendid  men.  Among  them  was  J.  E.  Boyn- 
ton  of  blessed  memory,  a  friend  of  my  youthful  years  and 
a  man  who  had  been  identified  with  Prohibition  work 
ever  since  his  majority.  He  was  one  of  the  rising  young 
attorneys  at  Waco,  and  before  his  death,  which  was  un- 
timely and  greatly  deplored,  he  reached  a  place  of  high  emi- 
nence in  the  work  to  which  he  had  given  his  life. 

The  Texas  Prohibition  Convention  instructed  the  Texas 
delegation  to  present  my  name  as  a  candidate  for  Vice- 
President.  When  we  reached  the  Convention,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  a  very  wide  demand  coming  from  all  parts 
of  the  United  States  that  I  should  accept  a  place  on  the 
national  ticket.  It  seemed  to  have  been  thoroughly  agreed 
upon  that  the  presidential  candidate  should  come  from  some 
northern  State  and  the  vice-presidential  candidate  should 
come  from  the  South.  In  1888  it  was  Fisk  and  Brooks — 
Fisk  coming  from  New  Jersey  and  Brooks  from  Missouri. 

407 


408       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

But  there  was  another  Southern  man  mentioned — Joshua 
Levering,  of  Baltimore,  who  was  afterwards  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency  on  the  National  Prohibition  ticket,  and 
for  more  than  one  term  president  of  the  Southern  Baptist 
Convention.  He  is  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  prominent 
of  our  Southern  Baptist  and  Southern  Prohibition  leaders. 
When  he  was  placed  in  nomination  by  the  Baltimore 
delegation  at  Cincinnati,  I  felt  that  he  ought  to  receive  the 
nomination.  However,  so  many  of  my  friends  from  all  over 
the  country  had  approached  me,  and  the  Texas  delegation 
were  still  so  insistent  that  my  name  should  be  placed  before 
the  Convention,  that  I  felt  it  right  to  allow  it  to  be  done. 

The  balloting  was  exceedingly  interesting.  Sam  Small, 
then  of  Atlanta,  was  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Conven- 
tion. He  has  a  wonderfully  resonant  and  penetrating  voice, 
and  it  was  soon  evident  that  he  was  in  favor  of  my  nomi- 
nation. While  the  race  was  close,  there  was  the  best  of  feel- 
ing throughout.  Small  did  not  allow  the  vote  to  be  an- 
nounced very  rapidly.  It  was  seen  that  Levering  and  I  were 
running  neck  and  neck.  There  were  some  other  nomina- 
tions, and  when  the  first  ballot  was  counted,  it  was  discov- 
ered that  no  one  of  us  had  received  a  majority  of  all  the 
votes  cast.  A  second  ballot  was  at  once  ordered.  In  the 
meantime,  Sam  Small  made  one  of  his  impassioned  appeals. 
While  complimenting  Mr.  Levering  as  being  a  great  and  a 
good  man,  he  said : 

"  You  Prohibitionists  from  the  nation  at  large  have  de- 
cided to  nominate  a  southern  man  for  the  vice-presidency. 
You  have  just  named  General  John  Bidwell,  of  California, 
as  your  presidential  standard-bearer,  and  it  is  well  under- 
stood among  all  the  delegates  to  this  convention  that  we  are 
to  go  South  for  the  man  to  lead  us  as  the  vice-presidential 
nominee.  Now,  gentlemen,  if  we  are  going  to  go  South,  let's 
go  South.  Maryland  is  not  really  a'  Southern  State,  but 
Texas  is ! " 


AN  EVENTFUL  YEAR  409 

With  that  he  closed.  The  balloting  began  again,  this  time 
with  an  intensity  of  interesct  that  had  not  before  been  wit- 
nessed during  the  sessions  of  the  convention.  It  was  then 
past  midnight,  and  it  was  a  long  and  tedious  task  to  poll  all 
the  delegates  from  all  the  States.  However,  no  one  seemed 
tired.  After  all  the  States  had  announced  that  their  votes 
were  ready,  Small  began  to  read  the  results  from  the  plat- 
form. He  did  not  read  very  hastily.  As  before,  he  was 
deliberate.  As  the  balloting  progressed,  it  was  observed 
that  I  had  gained  over  Levering  and  some  of  the  other  nomi- 
nees had  correspondingly  lost.  The  result  was  that  after  a 
State  had  even  sent  up  its  votes,  some  delegate  would  arise 
and  say,  for  instance,  "  Wisconsin  wishes  to  change  her 
vote.  We  sent  up  a  vote  showing  eight  for  Cranfill  and 
eight  for  Levering.  We  wish  to  change  and  make  it  six- 
teen for  Cranfill." 

In  this  way  the  convention  soon  stampeded  and  my  nomi- 
nation was  made  unanimous. 

By  that  time  it  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  the 
convention  could  not  yet  adjourn.  I  was  hustled  to  the 
platform  and  literally  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  the  dele- 
gates rushed  to  shake  my  hand.  In  the  meantime,  I  had 
made  a  short  speech  of  thanks  and  had  pledged  anew  to  the 
assembled  prohibition  hosts  of  America  my  life  and  my 
labors  to  this  greatest  of  all  human  undertakings — the  aboli- 
tion of  the  American  drink  traffic,  and  I  have  been  true 
to  that  pledge. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  convention.  Miss  Frances  Willard 
made  one  of  her  characteristic  addresses,  during  which  she 
discussed  the  question  of  Populism,  then  playing  so  promi- 
nent a  part  in  American  politics.  In  this  reference  she 
mentioned  the  name  of  Mr.  Terrell,  of  Texas,  who  was  a 
prominent  Populist,  but  opposed  to  prohibition.    She  added : 

"  He  is  not  so  great  a  statesman  as  our  own  dear  Dr.  J.  B. 


410       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Cranfill,  of  Texas,  who  stands  for  prohibition  and  for  every 
needed  American  reform." 

Doubtless  this  very  commendatory  remark  on  the  part  of 
this  great  W.  C.  T.  U.  leader  played  an  important  part  in 
my  nomination  for  the  vice-presidency. 

I  will  here  recite  a  bit  of  American  history  not  generally 
known.  When  the  Republican  National  Convention  nomi- 
nated Abraham  Lincoln  and  Andrew  Johnson  for  the  presi- 
dency and  vice-presidency,  respectively,  a  man  who  was 
afterwards  an  ardent  Prohibitionist  and  a  very  warm  friend 
of  mine — General  Green  Clay  Smith,  of  Kentucky — was 
named  in  the  same  convention  for  vice-president  against 
Andrew  Johnson.  He  came  within  one-half  a  vote  of  secur- 
ing the  nomination.  In  other  words,  he  was  within  one-half 
a  vote  of  being  president  of  the  United  States. 


LXIV 

CAMPAIGNING  FOR  THE  NATIONAL 
PROHIBITION  PARTY 

I  AT  ONCE  became  a  national  figure.  I  was  besieged  by 
newspaper  reporters  and  staff  artists  of  metropolitan 
periodicals  while  in  Cincinnati,  and  this  interest  in  every- 
thing that  concerned  me  did  not  abate  until  after  the  national 
election  of  that  year.  The  most  important  matter,  however, 
was  the  work  I  was  to  do  in  behalf  of  the  National  Prohi- 
bition party.  Samuel  W.  Dickie,  of  Albion,  Mich.,  was  na- 
tional chairman.  He  promptly  sought  a  conference  with  me 
to  ascertain  how  much  time  I  could  give  to  the  campaign. 

On  my  return  to  Texas,  I  conferred  with  M.  V.  Smith, 
and  after  going  over  the  matter  fully,  he  decided  that  I 
could  be  spared  from  my  journalistic  duties  for  the  months 
of  July,  August  and  September.  We  moved  The  Standard 
from  Dallas  to  Waco  the  first  days  of  July. 

Meantime,  through  the  solicitation  of  M.  V.  Smith,  H.  J. 
Chamberlin  and  his  good  wife,  Mrs.  Mary  Chamberlin, 
came  up  from  Belton  to  take  charge  of  certain  departments 
of  The  Standard.  Chamberlin  at  first  asked  no  security 
for  his  loan  except  the  joint  note  of  M.  V.  Smith  and  myself. 
Later  on,  however,  he  took  a  mortgage  on  the  entire  plant. 
Notes  were  given  him  bearing  8  per  cent  interest,  and  these, 
as  interest  accrued,  were  often  renewed,  thus  compounding 
the  interest. 

During  that  campaign,  I  canvassed  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
Georgia,  North  Carolina  and  Texas.  An  interesting  inci- 
dent occurred  at  Wesson,  Mississippi.     The  pastor  of  the 

411 


412       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Baptist  Church  there,  Rev.  J.  A.  Purser,  was  a  warm  friend 
of  mine.  I  had  another  very  faithful  friend  in  Mississippi 
in  the  person  of  C.  A.  Hobbs,  editor  of  The  Brookhaven 
Leader.  I  had  known  Hobbs  for  many  years.  He  was  an 
ardent  Prohibitionist,  a  Baptist  and  a  man  of  the  very  high- 
est character. 

The  night  I  spoke  at  Wesson  was  one  of  the  brightest 
moonlight  nights  it  has  ever  been  my  pleasure  to  enjoy.  On 
account  of  the  brightness  and  balminess  of  the  evening,  the 
meeting  was  held  in  the  open  out  in  front  of  the  broad 
veranda  of  the  hotel.  I  made  the  regulation  Prohibition 
party  speech,  showing  that  the  Democrats  and  Republicans 
had  failed  utterly  to  recognize  the  gravity  and  importance  of 
the  Prohibition  issue,  and  for  that  reason  it  had  been  nec- 
essary to  organize  the  National  Prohibition  party,  put  candi- 
dates in  the  field  and  go  out  in  an  effort  to  carry  the  coun- 
try for  the  stainless  banner  of  Prohibition.  The  Democratic 
nominees  that  year  were  Grover  Cleveland  and  Adlai  Stev- 
enson. I  referred  respectfully  to  my  opponents  on  the 
tickets  of  both  the  old  parties,  but  I  flagellated  them  for 
their  indifference  concerning  the  prohibition  question. 

In  the  audience  was  a  lawyer,  Hamilton  by  name,  who  was 
a  notably  prominent  citizen  of  the  village.  After  I  had  re- 
sumed my  seat,  Hamilton  arose  and  without  ceremony  pro- 
ceeded to  answer  me.  He  made  a  capital  speech.  He  was 
bright  and  interesting,  and  on  account  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  speaking  to  his  own  people,  who  knew  him  and  thought 
highly  of  him,  he  made  very  happy  headway  in  his  oration. 

While  he  was  proceeding  to  demolish  the  Prohibition 
party  and  to  give  the  proper  Democratic  attention  to  my 
case,  my  friend  Hobbs  leaned  over  and  whispered  to  me, 
"  You  will  have  to  answer  him."    I  replied : 

"  I  cannot  do  so.  It  would  compromise  my  dignity  as  a 
candidate  for  vice-president  of  a  great  political  party  to 
notice  a  little  local  legal  light."    Hobbs  replied : 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  PROHIBITION        413 

"  That  sounds  very  well  and  would  do  splendidly  to  put 
in  a  newspaper,  but  you  had  this  crowd  and  he  has  taken 
them  away  from  you.    You  must  answer  him." 

I  said  to  Hobbs :  "  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  answer  him 
and  in  fact  would  enjoy  it,  but  I  cannot  volunteer  to  do  so. 
If  you  will  secure  the  platform  after  he  takes  his  seat  and 
absolutely  force  me  to  respond,  I  will,  very  reluctantly,  of 
course,  do  so." 

Hobbs  took  the  cue  and  performed  his  part  splendidly. 
When  Hamilton  had  finished  his  address,  he  arose  and  with 
a  great  show  of  grievance  and  chagrin,  said: 

"  Ladies  and  Gentlemen : — We  have  had  the  honor  this 
evening  of  listening  to  a  candidate  for  vice-president  of  the 
United  States — an  honor  never  hitherto  conferred  upon  this 
fair  city.  He  made  us  a  respectful  address  indeed ;  not  only 
a  respectful  address,  but  one  of  the  greatest  orations  it  has 
ever  been  ours  to  hear.  In  all  good  conscience,  he  should 
have  been  allowed  to  have  thus  honored  us  and  to  have  been 
honored  by  us  in  return,  but  Mr.  Hamilton  has  gratuitously 
offered  him  an  affront  in  volunteering  to  reply  to  him.  Of 
course  he  cannot  afford  to  voluntarily  notice  Mr.  Hamilton 
or  his  speech.  However,  in  view  of  the  gravity  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  on  account  of  the  great  importance  of  the  cause 
of  our  crusade  against  the  liquor  traffic,  I  here  and  now 
request  Dr.  Cranfill,  our  peerless  standard-bearer,  to  come 
to  the  platform  and  say  some  words  in  reply  to  Mr.  Hamil- 
ton. If  you  are  of  the  same  mind,  you  will  raise  your 
hands." 

The  vote  was  practically  unanimous,  and  I  was  "  forced  " 
to  yield  to  the  demands  thus  made  upon  me,  the  fact  being, 
gentle  reader,  that  I  never  was  more  tickled  in  my  life. 

In  my  first  address  I  had  stated  to  the  audience  that  there 
was  really  no  issue  between  the  Democratic  and  Republican 
parties — that  they  were  substantially  agreed  upon  every  issue 
in  American  politics  except  one,  and  that  was  the  procure- 


414       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

ment  of  the  offices.  That  was  all  that  separated  them.  Mr. 
Hamilton  had  very  indignantly  resented  this  and  had  waved 
the  bloody  shirt  in  true  Mississippi  style.  We  were  twenty- 
three  years  nearer  the  Civil  War  in  1892  than  we  are  in  this 
year  of  grace  191 5,  as  this  chronicle  is  penned.  His  speech 
had  been  a  glittering  success.  However,  I  was  not  discour- 
aged. I  read  from  my  campaign  text  book  what  purported 
to  be  the  financial  plank  of  the  Democratic  platform.  I  read 
it  slowly,  deliberately  and  sonorously,  and  waited  to  give  it 
time  to  filter  through  the  crania  of  the  audience.  Then, 
making  myself  look  as  large  as  possible,  I  said : 

"  I  do  not  believe  that  you  Democrats  here  endorse  this 
plank  of  the  platform  which  I  have  now  read  to  you.  I  am 
sure  you  do  not." 

There  were  cries  through  the  audience,  "  Yes,  we  do !  We 
do !  "  whereupon  I  added : 

"  In  order  to  test  the  matter,  I  am  going  to  take  a  vote. 
Every  man  in  this  audience  who  absolutely  and  without 
equivocation  endorses  the  plank  that  I  have  read,  raise  your 
hand." 

The  vote  was  almost  unanimous.  There  were  a  few  Pro- 
hibitionists and  Populists  in  the  audience,  but  most  of  the 
crowd  were  Democrats.  My  oratorical  friend,  Hamilton, 
was  so  enthusiastic  in  his  endorsement  of  the  plank  that  he 
stood  up  on  his  chair  and  raised  both  hands,  amid  deafening 
applause. 

I  then  asked  the  audience  to  resume  their  seats,  whereupon 
I  said : 

"  Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  have  given  you  a  political 
object  lesson.  In  my  first  address  I  stated  with  emphasis 
that  there  was  really  no  issue  between  the  Democratic  and 
Republican  parties — that  they  were  running  along  in  the 
same  old  ruts  they  had  traversed  since  the  war,  each  in  turn 
waving  the  bloody  shirt,  and  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  no  live 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  PROHIBITION       415 

issue  now  divided  them  except  the  question  of  the  Federal 
offices.    I  have  now  proven  that  to  you." 

I  paused  a  moment  and  then  added : 

"I  have  read  to  you  the  financial  plank  of  the  Republi- 
can platform  and  every  mother's  son  of  you,  including  Mr. 
Hamilton,  your  great  orator,  has  endorsed  it! " 

Then  the  crash  came.  For  a  moment  the  audience  was 
stunned.  Hamilton  crumpled  down  limp  in  his  seat. 
When  those  great  stalwart  Mississippians  realized  the  pre- 
dicament in  which  they  found  themselves,  they  went  wild 
with  applause.  I  have  never  seen  anything  just  like  it. 
They  would  have  taken  me  bodily  from  the  platform  and 
carried  me  around  on  their  shoulders,  but  we  were  not  will- 
ing to  permit  it.  When  I  looked  around,  Hamilton  was 
gone. 

The  next  morning,  a  report  of  this  incident  was  in  all  the 
metropolitan  papers  of  the  country,  and  had  sped  across  the 
sea.     It  was  the  event  of  that  national  campaign. 

I  roomed  at  this  great  old  spacious  hotel  that  night. 
Next  morning  I  was  aroused  from  my  sleep  by  a  conversa- 
tion between  two  colored  chambermaids.  They  had  been 
witnesses  of  the  meeting  the  evening  before.  One  of  them 
said: 

"  Somebody  oughter  told  dat  fool  Hamilton  somethin'  so 
h'd  er  had  more  sense  dan  to  ben  speakin'  agin  dat  great 
big  man  from  '  way  off !  " 

That  seemed  to  be  the  sentiment  of  the  entire  commu- 
nity. The  tragedy  of  it  was  that  a  little  later  and  much  to 
my  regret,  Hamilton  had  to  move  from  Wesson.  His  prac- 
tice melted  away  from  him,  and  he  was  forced  to  seek  new 
pastures. 

Another  most  interesting  incident  of  the  Mississippi  cam- 
paign was  my  address  at  Columbus,  the  home  of  the  brave 
soldier  and  princely  Christian  gentleman.  General  Stephen 
D.  Lee.    He  was  not  only  one  of  the  great  soldiers  of  the 


416       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

South,  but  a  Baptist  and  a  man  who  in  his  private  life  was 
as  distingushed  for  his  gentleness  and  kindness  of  heart  as 
he  had  been  distingushed  in  the  service  of  his  country. 

From  Mississippi,  I  went  into  Alabama,  speaking  there 
to  large  audiences  in  various  portions  of  the  State,  and  then 
pushed  on  to  Georgia,  where  I  was  met  by  my  old  time 
friend,  Sam  Small,  who  was  at  that  time  in  the  employ  of 
the  National  Prohibition  Committee.  He  toured  Georgia 
with  me,  and  was  not  only  a  splendid  yoke- fellow  in  the 
work,  but  his  masterful  speeches,  sparkling  with  wit  and 
abounding  in  pith  and  argument,  greatly  seconded  my  own 
addresses. 

From  Georgia  I  journeyed  on  into  North  Carolina,  my 
first  speech  being  delivered  at  Asheville.  That  was  one  of  the 
most  memorable  meetings  of  my  life.  It  was  held  in  the 
largest  auditorium  in  town.  When  I  arose  to  speak  I  looked 
into  a  sea  of  faces  of  the  flower  of  North  Carolina  man- 
hood. Among  them  was  a  brother  of  General  Wade  Hamp- 
ton. I  can  see  this  patriotic,  grizzled  old  veteran  now  as  I 
write,  and  I  can  feel  the  warmth  of  his  soldierly  and  yet 
fraternal  handgrasp  as  sensibly  as  I  felt  it  that  night  when 
a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  I  spoke  to  the  men  out  of  my 
heart  concerning  the  urgency  of  the  issue  before  us. 

One  of  the  most  notable  meetings  of  my  entire  campaign 
was  at  Ashboro,  a  county  seat  town  down  in  Western  North 
Carolina.  District  Court  adjourned  for  the  meeting.  The 
Court  House  was  crowded.  There  was  not  an  inch  of  stand- 
ing room.  I  have  scarcely  ever  addressed  just  such  an  audi- 
ence. Men  stood  in  the  aisles  and  leaned  on  the  backs  of 
benches  through  two  hours,  and  hung  upon  every  word  I 
said.  These  good,  patriotic,  old-timey  Southern  people  had 
never  before  been  honored  by  a  visit  from  a  vice-presiden- 
tial candidate. 

I  pushed  on  to  High  Point,  then  to  Charlotte,  then  to 
Durham,  then  to  other  points  of  prominence  in  this  great 


CAMPAIGNING  FOR  PROHIBITION       417 

State.  I  yearned  to  jump  down  to  the  Yadkin  River  coun- 
try, where  my  ancestors  were  born  and  reared,  but  time  for- 
bade. I  closed  my  last  engagement  in  North  Carolina  and 
turned  most  wearily,  but  yet  happily,  homeward. 

I  have  always  thought  that  a  mistake  was  made  in  routing 
me  through  the  Southern  States.  I  could  have  won  many 
more  votes  by  going  North.  I  have  always  been  enabled  to 
enlist  the  sympathies  of  my  Northern  audiences.  This  was 
notably  true  later  on,  when  I  spoke  to  vast  throngs  among 
our  Baptist  people,  and  also  addressed  great  Prohibition 
crowds. 

The  Standard  suffered  much  by  my  absence.  M.  V.  Smith 
was  busy  with  his  pastorate,  and  it  was  not  possible  for  him 
to  spend  all  his  time  in  the  office.  It  was  impossible  on  my 
rounds  to  do  much  editorial  work.  I  was  out  of  touch  with 
Texans  and  Texas  affairs.  My  mind  was  on  national  af- 
fairs. Every  moment  of  my  time  was  taken.  There  is  no 
work  under  the  sun  harder  than  that  of  the  traveling  lec- 
turer or  preacher.  If  I  had  an  enemy  which  I  wished  to 
punish,  (which,  please  God,  I  have  not  and  hope  never  to 
have)  I  think  I  could  devise  no  greater  punishment  than  to 
start  him  out  on  the  road  as  a  drummer  or  a  lecturer. 

Matters  denominational  were  quiescent.  The  Standard, 
as  a  peace  paper,  had  already  achieved  widespread  recogni- 
tion, and  there  was  no  cloud  on  the  Texas  Baptist  horizon. 


LXV 

THE  BAPTIST  STANDARD  AND  ITS  WORK 
FROM  WACO 

JB.  GAMBRELL  decided  not  to  join  us  in  The  Stand- 
ard. M.  V.  Smith  was  a  true  yoke-fellow.  Never  in 
*  the  history  of  Texas  Baptists  has  there  been  a  gentler, 
kinder,  nobler,  braver,  truer  man.  B.  H.  Carroll  once,  in 
speaking  of  him,  said  that  M.  V.  Smith,  in  his  quiet,  peace- 
making way,  had  oiled  more  denominational  machinery  than 
any  man  in  Texas.  His  work  on  The  Standard  was  char- 
acteristic. It  was  constructive,  intelligent,  progressive  and 
fraternal.  He  could  not  be  on  the  field  a  great  deal,  but 
wherever  he  went,  he  did  much  good  for  the  paper.  He 
devised  a  plan  to  capitalize  the  paper  by  securing  looo  life 
subscribers  at  $25  each.  He  secured  quite  a  number  of  these 
subscriptions,  and  his  plan  was  working  splendidly  at  the 
time  of  his  death. 

The  Baptist  General  Convention  met  in  1892  with  M.  V. 
Smith's  church  at  Belton.  Meantime,  on  March  31,  I  gave 
up  the  work  as  Superintendent  of  Missions.  In  connection 
with  the  final  closing  of  that  responsibility,  an  incident  oc- 
curred that  figured  quite  largely  in  the  later  assaults  upon 
me  and  the  work  of  that  period  by  S.  A.  Hayden.  Every 
three  months  the  missionaries  of  the  Convention  each  make 
to  the  Superintendent  a  report  of  his  work  for  the  quarter 
preceding.  This  is  sent  in  on  a  blank  furnished  for  that 
purpose.  Not  only  does  he  give  the  days  labored,  sermons 
preached,  miles  traveled,  churches  organized,  etc.,  but  at 
the  close  of  the  report  he  gives  the  amount  of  missionary 

418 


Miss  Mabel  Cranfill. 


THE  BAPTIST  STANDARD  AT  WACO      419 

funds  collected  on  his  field.  It  was  not  customary  for  the 
missionary  to  actually  remit  this  money.  He  kept  the  money, 
but  reported  it  as  collected  on  his  field,  and  when  his  report 
reached  the  Superintendent,  the  amount  was  charged  against 
this  missionary's  account  and  deducted  from  the  check  sub- 
sequently mailed  him.  There  were  the  reports  for  six  months 
from  some  140  to  150  missionaries  closing  my  incumbency 
on  March  31.  These  reports  came  to  me,  were  duly  re- 
corded so  far  as  the  financial  parts  of  the  report  were  con- 
cerned, and  were  taken  by  me  to  the  bindery  of  Brooks  & 
Wallace  for  binding.  Some  days  afterward,  when  I  went 
to  this  printing  house  in  my  buggy,  I  secured  these  reports 
thus  bound,  laid  them  on  the  buggy  seat  beside  me,  and 
started  home  with  them.  When  I  reached  home,  this  bound 
volume  of  reports  was  missing.  By  some  means  it  had  been 
lost  off  the  buggy  seat,  and  was  never  found.  Every  finan- 
cial item  in  the  report  was  accounted  for,  and,  as  stated,  had 
been  already  taken  off  the  reports  and  properly  recorded  in 
the  cash  book.  It  entailed  no  difficulty  so  far  as  a  settlement 
with  the  missionaries  was  concerned,  but  there  dropped  out 
of  the  history  of  the  Baptists  of  Texas  the  detailed  report 
of  the  work  of  the  missionaries  for  the  six  months  ending 
March  31,  1892.  I  had  them  bound  purposely  to  turn  over 
to  my  successor. 

On  account  of  this  loss,  which  was  very  regrettable  in 
every  way,  J.  M.  Carroll,  in  his  report,  submitted  at  the  Bel- 
ton  Convention,  said  that  he  was  unable  to  make  a  report 
of  the  work  done  for  the  first  six  months  of  the  year,  for  the 
reason  that  the  reports  had  never  come  into  his  hands.  The 
reason  why  these  reports  did  not  reach  him,  I  have  just  de- 
tailed. Later,  S.  A.  Hayden  made  a  great  ado  over  this  fact, 
though  there  was  really  nothing  in  it  except  a  deplorable 
loss  of  reports  that  could  not  be  replaced.  Years  afterwards, 
when  S.  A.  Hayden  was  making  his  campaign  against  the 
Board,  against  me,  against  J.  M.  Carroll  and  all  the  rest  of 


420       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

us,  he  held  this  fact  up  before  the  world  as  an  evidence  that 
crooked  work  had  been  done;  that  reports  had  been  inten- 
tionally withheld  from  the  scrutiny  of  the  denomination. 

All  of  the  books  were  at  the  Convention  in  the  hands  of 
Treasurer  John  T.  Battle.  When  the  report  was  made,  he 
held  up  his  cash  books  and  the  other  books  that  had  been 
kept  in  my  office,  and  which  had  been  turned  over  to  him 
as  treasurer,  and  invited  inspection.  He  stated  to  the  Con- 
vention that  these  were  the  books,  and  that  he  had  all  the 
vouchers  covering  the  expenditures,  every  penny  of  money, 
during  the  past  year.  This  was  at  the  time  very  satisfac- 
tory. S.  A.  Hayden  did  not  make  any  comment,  none  of 
his  confreres  or  sympathizers  made  objections,  and  thus  the 
record  of  my  work  as  Superintendent  of  Missions  was 
finally  incorporated  in  the  archives  of  the  Baptist  General 
Convention  of  Texas. 

During  the  winter  of  1892,  I  began  to  suffer  renewed 
agonies  with  my  eyes.  The  return  to  journalistic  work,  in- 
cluding proof-reading  and  such  other  duties  as  are  inci- 
dent to  the  publication  of  a  newspaper,  was  too  great  a  tax 
upon  my  eyes.  The  result  was  that  I  found  it  necessary 
to  leave  Waco  for  the  time  being,  and  take  up  my  abode  in 
Dallas  to  receive  the  expert  treatment  of  Dr.  R.  H.  Chilton. 

At  about  this  time,  John  Hill  Luther,  for  many  years 
president  of  Baylor  College,  resigned  that  position,  and  at 
the  solicitation  of  M.  V.  Smith  and  myself,  moved  to  Waco 
to  take  an  editorial  position  on  The  Standard.  He  had  al- 
ready had  years  of  journalistic  experience,  having  founded 
The  Central  Baptist,  of  St.  Louis,  then  one  of  our  leading 
denominational  papers. 

Dr.  Luther  was  not  a  rapid  writer,  but  his  English  was 
as  pure  and  as  classical  as  that  of  Addison.  He  would 
labor  a  whole  day  on  a  column  editorial,  but  when  it  became 
a  finished  product,  it  was  as  perfect  as  Parian  marble.  It 
was  a  source  of  constant  wonderment  to  him  that  such  work 


THE  BAPTIST  STANDARD  AT  WACO      421 

as  I  did  was  performed  with  such  rapidity  and  ease.  I  have 
had  the  faculty  all  my  life  of  having  at  my  tongue's  end 
what  I  wanted  to  say,  and  at  my  fingers'  end  what  I  wished 
to  write.  I  am  master  of  my  equipment,  and  I  know  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment  all  that  I  ever  know.  Dr.  Luther's 
mind  worked  more  deliberately.  He  grew  very  valuable  in 
many  ways,  but  on  account  of  an  already  overburdened  ex- 
pense account.  The  Standard  was  not  really  able  to  con- 
tinue him,  and  very  reluctantly,  some  months  after  the  death 
of  M.  V.  Smith,  I  found  it  absolutely  necessary  to  part  with 
him. 

During  his  stay  with  us,  an  event  occured  that  cast  its 
shadow  before.  S.  A.  Hayden  was  in  Waco,  having  doubt- 
less come  there  on  purpose  to  inspect  The  Standard  outfit. 
It  was  a  little  while  before  the  disastrous  fire  that  within 
the  space  of  a  few  minutes  reduced  The  Standard  and  all  of 
is  belongings  to  ashes.  When  S.  A.  Hayden  came  into  our 
office  (we  were  all  friendly  then),  he  extended  his  hand  to 
J.  H.  Luther.  Hayden  had  brought  in  with  him  in  his  right 
hand  a  homed  frog.  When  he  shook  hands  with  Dr. 
Luther,  he  left  the  horned  frog  in  Dr.  Luther's  hand,  where- 
upon the  latter  with  great  earnestness  said : 

"  Hayden,  I  knew  it  was  in  your  heart,  but  I  didn't  know 
it  was  in  your  hand !  " 

Until  Dr.  Luther's  dying  day,  he  and  I  were  loving 
friends.  He  was  one  of  the  sweetest,  choicest,  noblest  spirits 
it  has  ever  been  mine  to  know.  He  was  low  of  stature  physi- 
cally, but  he  towered  mountain  high  in  the  nobility  of  his 
character  and  his  majestic  spirit.  I  have  often  heard  him 
say  he  would  give  a  million  dollars  an  inch  to  have  six 
inches  added  to  his  height.  He  did  not  need  them.  Not- 
withstanding he  was  but  little  taller  than  Napoleon,  who 
was  five  feet  three,  he  at  the  same  time  was  a  masterful  man 
in  every  way,  and  one  whose  life  and  work  will  live  on  and 
glorify  the  Master  till  time  shall  end. 


LXVI 
TRYING  DAYS  FOR  THE  STANDARD 

SOON  after  The  Standard  was  moved  to  Waco,  a  dep- 
utation from  the  Printers'  Union  demanded  that  our 
printers  should  be  discharged  and  Union  printers  sub- 
stituted. Up  to  that  time  I  had  not  known  that  they  were 
non-union.  They  were  capable,  faithful,  industrious  and 
honorable,  and  for  this  reason  I  gave  each  one  the  option  of 
moving  from  Dallas  to  Waco  with  the  publication.  They  all 
chose  to  go  with  us.  I  was  not  prepared  to  give  these  walk- 
ing delegates  an  immediate  answer.  I  asked  for  time  to  con- 
sider the  matter.  At  my  request  they  gave  me  thirty  days, 
which  I  counted  quite  an  indulgence. 

At  the  end  of  thirty  days,  they  returned.  I  explained  to 
them  that  both  of  the  men  had  families,  that  the  young  lady 
was  making  her  own  way,  that  they  were  faithful  and  indus- 
trious, and  were  being  paid  the  Union  scale  for  composition, 
and  that  I  had  decided  to  retain  them.  They  went  their  way 
rather  sullenly,  to  return  next  day  with  the  announcement 
that  unless  I  discharged  these  printers  and  employed  Union 
printers,  they  would  call  out  the  Union  pressmen  who  were 
printing  The  Standard.  We  had  no  presses  and  were  having 
The  Standard  printed  by  contract.  I  scented  serious  trouble 
here.  If  they  made  this  demand  upon  the  pressmen  and 
press  feeders  our  pressman  would  of  necessity  be  forced  to 
discontinue  printing  our  publication.  The  result  would  have 
been  that  The  Standard  would  have  been  killed  outright. 
I  again  asked  for  time — this  time  for  sixty  days.  Quite 
reluctantly,  they  granted  this  indulgence. 

422 


TRYING  DAYS  FOR  THE  STANDARD      423 

The  next  day  I  bought  a  press.  Before  the  expiration 
of  the  sixty  days,  we  were  printing  our  paper  on  our  own 
press  from  our  own  type  set  up  by  our  own  printers  in  an 
office  that  belonged  personally  to  me. 

But  the  walking  delegates  returned.  When  they  looked 
in  upon  us  they  already  saw  their  answer.  It  had  been  a 
great  inconvenience  to  us  to  buy  a  press  at  this  time,  but  to 
me  liberty  of  conscience,  freedom  of  speech  and  the  manage- 
ment of  my  own  affairs,  has  always  been  dearer  than  life 
itself.  Not  for  one  moment  would  I  at  that  time  or  would 
I  ever  at  any  other  time,  have  allowed  these  Union  printers 
to  take  charge  of  my  affairs  and  administer  my  business.  I 
told  these  men  that  I  had  decided  we  would  not  discharge 
our  force,  repeating  what  I  had  said  before,  that  the  men 
were  good  men  and  that  the  young  lady  was  exceptionally 
efficient. 

Then  the  expected  happened.  The  Waco  Typographical 
Union  promulgated  an  official  order  of  boycott  against  The 
Standard.  They  sent  their  walking  delegates  to  our  Waco 
advertisers  and  announced  to  them  that  unless  they  ceased 
to  advertise  in  The  Standard,  they,  the  Union  Labor  people, 
would  withdraw  all  patronage  from  such  firms.  This  pre- 
cipitated a  distinct  crisis.  I  had  already  submitted  the  mat- 
ter to  M.  V.  Smith  and  H.  J.  Chamberlin.  They  were  in 
agreement  with  me,  but  none  of  us  were  prepared  to  sur- 
render all  of  our  advertising.  The  paper  was  not  yet  by 
any  means  upon  a  self-sustaining  basis.  While  we  were  in- 
creasing our  subscription  list  and  gaining  right  along,  it  had 
not  been  expected  by  any  of  us  that  we  should  reach  a  pay- 
ing basis  for  many  months  to  come,  but  we  stood  our  ground. 
The  Waco  Typographical  Union  did  all  it  could  to  destroy 
us,  but,  happy  to  relate,  the  business  men  of  Waco  did  not 
dignify  their  boycott  with  any  great  attention.  The  large 
advertisers  continued  with  us,  and  in  a  little  while  the  boy- 
cott wore  itself  to  a  frazzle  and  the  fiasco  reached  its  end. 


424       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

While  that  was  true,  we  had  a  taste  of  Printers'  Unionism 
and  Labor  Unionism  in  a  concrete  form.  The  same  spirit 
pervades  it  everywhere;  and  while  I  have  never  discrimi- 
nated against  Union  labor,  I  have  at  the  same  time  been 
always  absolutely  free  to  employ  any  kind  of  labor  at  any 
time  and  in  any  way  that  I  wished.  I  do  not  regard  a  non- 
union printer  as  a  "rat"  nor  a  non-union  workman  as  a 
"  scab."  The  non-union  men  are  as  good  as  the  Union  men. 
All  of  them  were  made  out  of  the  same  clay,  and  each  man  in 
his  place,  union  or  non-union,  has  a  right  under  God  to 
earn  bread  for  his  family  and  to  order  his  life  according  to 
the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience.  This  in  fine  is  my  posi- 
tion on  the  labor  question,  as  was  demonstrated  in  this  in- 
cident. 

Later  on  I  voluntarily  unionized  The  Standard  office  and 
for  nearly  twelve  years  my  foreman  was  R.  B.  Wallace,  one 
of  the  truest  and  most  capable  men  I  have  ever  known.  But 
I  never  could  be  forced  into  measures  by  the  Printers'  Union 
or  anybody  else. 

But  I  had  to  spend  much  time  in  Dallas.  We  went  on 
through  1892,  and  1893  opened  not  inauspiciously  for  our 
venture.  I  was  suffering  very  much  from  time  to  time  with 
my  eyes.  While  in  Dallas,  I  had  been  taking  my  meals  for 
a  long  time  in  the  home  of  the  pastor,  A.  M.  Simms,  one 
of  the  noblest,  truest,  dearest  friends  I  ever  had.  I  look 
back  upon  those  days  when  I  was  in  his  home  with  joy.  His 
wife  was  sweet,  gentle,  kind  and  sympathetic,  as  were  all 
his  family.  They  were  exceedingly  considerate  of  me,  their 
suffering  guest ;  and  while  I  paid  them  board  for  such  time 
as  I  was  in  their  home,  the  best  things  in  life  cannot  be 
measured  by  money.  This  kindness  I  received  at  their  hands 
could  not  have  been  computed  in  terms  of  material  values. 

After  having  been  with  them  for  some  time,  I  lived  in 
the  home  of  Dr.  H.  A.  Moseley.  I  was  in  that  home  in 
February,  1893,  when  the  sainted  M.  V.  Smith  was  called 


TRYING  DAYS  FOR  THE  STANDARD      425 

to  be  with  Christ.  I  was  suffering  at  that  time  agonizingly 
with  ulcerations  in  both  eyes.  All  told,  I  think  it  was  the 
most  excruciating  spell  I  ever  suffered.  My  evening  hours 
were  beguiled  through  the  kindly  and  considerate  help  of 
Miss  Hattie  Belle  Moseley,  a  teacher  in  the  Dallas  public 
school.  Out  of  the  kindness  and  gentleness  of  her  heart,  she 
read  to  me  during  the  long  winter  evenings,  and  thus  aided 
me  to  pass  the  painful  hours  away. 

These  were  the  darkest  hours  of  my  life.  Charged  with 
the  responsibility  of  a  new  enterprise,  heavily  in  debt,  con- 
ducting a  business  that  was  losing  money  every  day,  away 
from  home,  threatened  with  blindness,  physically  ill,  and 
bereft  of  my  loving  friend  and  my  most  intelligent  counsel- 
lor and  sympathizer,  the  day  was  almost  hopelessly  dark. 

M.  W  Smith  died  a  Christian  hero.  Conscious  to  the 
last  moment,  he  called  his  loved  ones  about  his  bed,  bade 
them  each  in  turn  good-bye,  and  at  last,  when  he  neared  the 
river's  brink,  with  his  eyes  closed,  he  said,  "  Safe  in  my 
Saviour's  arms  at  last."  Thus  died  one  of  the  dearest,  truest, 
gentlest,  kindest,  bravest,  ablest,  most  useful  men  that  Texas 
Baptists  ever  knew.  I  resolved  that  as  long  as  life  endured 
T  would,  to  the  extent  of  my  ability,  keep  his  memory  green. 
It  is  thus  that  these  words  are  recorded  in  this  chronicle, 
to  be  read  after  I  too  have  left  the  walks  of  men.  In  the 
better  land  I  hope  to  meet  this  cherished  friend  in  the  home 
that  knows  no  sadness,  no  sorrow  and  no  tears. 


LXVII 

H.  J.  CHAMBERLIN 

THE  death  of  M.  V.  Smith  left  the  entire  burden  and 
responsibility  of  The  Standard  upon  me — financial, 
editorial,  managerial.  While  the  name  of  H.  J. 
Chamberlin  appeared  at  the  masthead  as  business  mana- 
ger, he  was  not  a  newspaper  man,  had  never  been  in  news- 
paper harness  and  was  ignorant  of  the  journalistic  pro- 
fession. He  and  his  noble  wife,  however,  gave  unstintedly 
of  their  time  and  energies  to  the  enterprise.  The  chief  ser- 
vice they  rendered  was  keeping  the  mailing  list.  Our  sub- 
scription was  rapidly  increasing.  These  dear  friends  took 
entire  charge  of  the  subscripton  department  and  they  did 
an  amazing  amount  of  work  on  the  list.  Mr.  Chamberlin 
asked  me  after  the  death  of  M.  V.  Smith,  for  the  execution 
of  a  chattel  mortgage  on  the  entire  plant,  in  order  that  his 
notes  might  be  secured.  I  have  had  one  rule  of  life  con- 
cerning business  matters.  When  I  owe  a  man,  it  is  always 
my  purpose  to  pay  him,  and  meantime  I  am  willing  to  give 
him  security  to  the  uttermost  for  his  claim.  I  gave  Mr. 
Chamberlin  new  notes  with  compounded  interest,  the  rate 
now  enlarging  to  io%  as  against  8%  before,  and  executed 
a  chattel  mortgage  on  the  entire  plant. 

In  the  meantime,  a  remarkable  incident  occured.  Let 
it  be  remembered  that  H.  J.  Chamberlin  and  M.  V.  Smith 
were  the  very  best  of  friends.  He  had  been  M.  V.  Smith's 
deacon  in  Belton  in  the  years  before,  and  they  had  lived  in 
the  same  home  together.  If  M.  V.  Smith  had  been  asked 
to  select  a  friend  to  whom  he  would  leave  the  business  af- 

426 


H.  J.  CHAMBERLIN  427 

fairs  of  his  wife  and  children,  I  doubt  not  that  of  all 
men  in  the  world  he  would  have  selected  H.  J.  Chamberlin. 
The  surprising  thing,  however,  was  that  the  very  first  in- 
cident revealed  to  me  a  phase  of  H.  J.  Chamberlin's  charac- 
ter that  made  me  wonder  then,  and  that,  together  with  other 
incidents  in  the  man's  career,  has  led  me  to  wonder  often 
since. 

As  has  been  before  related,  I  did  not  put  a  cent  into  The 
Standard,  nor  did  M.  V.  Smith.  All  of  the  capital  was  bor- 
rowed from  H.  J.  Chamberlin.  I  had  drawn  $icx)  a  month 
to  begin  with,  but  M.  V.  Smith  had  drawn  no  salary  what- 
soever. All  that  he  had  received  for  his  field  work  was  the 
regular  agent's  commission  of  50%  upon  subscriptions  at 
the  regular  price  of  $2.00  a  year,  and  nothing  on  the  life 
subscribers  or  the  subscriptions  of  ministers  and  widows, 
to  whom  the  paper  was  sent  at  half  price.  Since  M.  V.  Smith 
had  put  nothing  into  the  paper  and  had  drawn  nothing 
out,  I  felt  that  it  would  be  right  for  his  widow  to  be  re- 
lieved from  all  financial  obligations  without  my  either  pay- 
ing anything  for  her  interest  or  charging  her  for  this  re- 
lease from  these  obligations. 

H.  J.  Chamberlin  took  a  different  view.  When  Charles 
B.  Smith,  then  quite  a  young  man,  the  son  of  M.  V.  Smith, 
came  to  Waco  to  settle  the  matter,  H.  J.  Chamberlin  told  him 
that  his  mother  would  have  to  pay  $500  in  cash  in  order  to 
be  relieved  of  obligations  on  the  paper.  He  was  stunned. 
I  was  astounded.  But  we  were  both  helpless.  He  went 
home,  and  through  great  sacrifice  raised  this  $500,  brought 
it  up  to  Waco,  paid  it  to  H.  J.  Chamberlin,  and  his  mother 
and  his  father's  estate  were  released  from  all  financial  obli- 
gation on  the  paper. 

That  was  one  side  of  H.  J.  Chamberlin's  character.  Here 
is  the  other  side :  He  at  once  put  that  $500  in  the  business, 
thus  giving  me  the  benefit  of  it !  He  applied  it  on  maturing 
interest  obligations,  crediting  the  amount  on  the  notes  that 


428       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

were  payable  to  him.  The  transaction  was  a  nightmare  to 
me.  As  soon  as  circumstances  would  permit,  I  went  to  Bel- 
ton  and  saw  Mrs.  Smith.  I  assured  her  that  this  $500 
would  be  paid  back  to  her.  I  was  not  able  to  pay  a  penny 
of  it  then  and  did  not  know  that  I  ever  would  be,  but  I 
gave  her  to  understand  that  I  was  not  a  party  to  this  trans- 
action, that  I  deplored  it,  and  thought  it  was  unjust  in  every 
way. 

The  opportunity  came  earlier  that  I  had  expected.  It 
was  not  cash,  but  she  afterwards  realized  the  cash  out  of  the 
accounts  that  I  transferred  to  her.  One  was  a  scholarship 
due  The  Standard  by  Baylor  College,  amounting  to  $250, 
and  the  other  items  were  some  life  subscriptions  yet  unpaid 
which  she  collected,  amounting  to  $250  more.  But  this 
greatly  displeased  H.  J.  Chamberlin.  He  never  forgave  me 
for  my  part  in  this  matter.  He  felt  that  my  return  of  this 
money  to  Mrs.  Smith  was  a  reflection  upon  him,  and  I  do 
not  think  that  his  feeling  for  me,  after  he  learned  of  my 
attitude,  was  ever  the  same.  True,  we  went  on  together  be- 
cause we  had  to  go  on  together.  I  had  to  go  on  with  him 
because  he  was  the  chief  creditor  of  the  enterprise,  and  he 
had  to  go  on  with  me  because  he  would  not  have  known 
what  to  do  with  The  Standard  if  he  had  owned  it. 

In  addition  to  keeping  the  subscription  list,  he  kept  the 
books,  but  he  was  not  a  book-keeper.  I  was  restive  under 
his  book-keeping.  The  result  was  that  I  employed  a  book- 
keeper, handling  the  matter  with  as  much  diplomacy  as 
possible.  I  never  wished  to  offend  him.  He  had  many  lov- 
able traits  and  his  wife  was  angelic  in  her  sweetness,  her 
gentleness  and  her  kindness  of  heart.  She  loved  The  Stand- 
ard and  the  work  on  the  paper  with  an  unfailing  love,  and 
I  think  that  Mr.  Chamberlin  himself  loved  it  as  much  as  he 
could  love  any  work. 

But  the  indebtedness  grew.  The  paper  had  to  grow.  The 
little  Campbell  press,  to  which  reference  had  already  been 


H.  J.  CHAMBERLIN  429 

made,  became  inadequate  for  our  needs.  By  the  opening 
of  the  year  1894,  our  subscription  list  had  reached  18,000. 
We  could  no  longer  print  the  paper  on  that  antiquated  ma- 
chine. The  result  was  that  a  new  press  was  installed  in  our 
office  in  Waco  early  in  January,  1894.  The  purchase  of  this 
new  machinery  and  the  consequent  enlargement  of  our  plant 
in  general  necessitated  the  procurement  of  additional  funds. 
These  Mr.  Chamberlin  most  cheerfully  furnished.  It  was 
only  two  weeks  after  the  installation  of  this  splendid  new 
press,  until  the  disastrous  fire  of  January  18,  1894,  occurred, 
which  wiped  The  Baptist  Standard  plant  out  of  existence. 

Then  came  the  brightest  spot  ever  revealed  to  me  in  the 
character  of  H.  J.  Chamberlin.  When  our  office  lay  in 
ashes,  he  came  to  me  and  said: 

"  Every  dollar  of  my  funds  is  at  your  command."  What- 
ever else  afterward  occured  between  H.  J.  Chamberlin  and 
myself,  this  nobility  was  never  forgotten.  Subsequent  in- 
cidents served  measurably  to  becloud  it,  but  it  was  never 
erased  from  my  heart. 

After  the  fire  of  1894,  we  moved  to  other  quarters  and 
put  in  a  large  job  printing  plant,  duplicating  the  press  that 
had  been  destroyed  and  improving  our  mechanical  outfit  in 
more  ways  than  one.  In  all  of  this,  H.  J.  Chamberlin  helped 
manfully,  and  his  consideration  and  kindness  knew  no 
bounds. 

But  as  time  went  on  his  exacerbations  of  goodness  and 
hardness  were  more  frequent.  Often  when  I  was  out  of 
the  office,  he  would  in  a  fit  of  petulance  turn  to  the  book- 
keeper and  say,  "  If  CranfiU  doesn't  look  out,  I'll  close  him 
up  today."  This  happened  many  times.  There  were  ma- 
turing obligations  all  along,  and  while  he  would  grant  me 
extensions  on  these  by  compounding  the  interest,  which  was 
done  over  and  over  again  before  the  interest  due  date,  at 
the  same  time  he  never  quite  allowed  me  any  free  breathing 
spells.    During  these  days,  he  bought  an  interest  in  the  pa- 


430       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

per.  We  made  a  verbal  contract.  I  was  to  sell  him  a  half 
interest  for  the  cancellation  of  my  indebtedness,  which  then 
amounted  to  $6,000.  I  considered  the  matter  closed  and  so 
did  he.  He  took  a  renewed  interest  in  the  paper.  Old  files 
that  had  been  left  to  mould  in  dust,  were  taken  out  and 
brushed  up.  Odds  and  ends  of  things  that  had  not  attracted 
his  attention  before,  became  interesting.  He  showed  that 
splendid  New  Hampshire  economy  of  which  he  was  master. 

About  two  months  went  on  this  way  and  my  mind  was 
at  rest.  The  list  of  The  Standard  was  growing  constantly, 
it  was  entrenching  itself  in  the  affections  of  the  denomi- 
nation, and  the  trouble  with  S.  A.  Hay  den  had  not  yet  come. 
Those  indeed  were  glad  and  happy  hours,  but  much  to  my 
chagrin  and  astonishment,  H.  J.  Chamberlin  one  day  ac- 
quainted me  with  the  fact  that  he  had  decided  not  to  buy 
an  interest  in  the  paper.    I  answered : 

"  Why,  Brother  Chamberlin,  you  have  already  bought  an 
interest  in  the  paper." 

This  he  denied,  and  thus  the  matter  ended.  He  became 
a  little  more  insistent  thereafter  upon  prompt  payment 
of  his  interest  and  his  principal,  and  thus  we  seesawed 
from  day  to  day,  from  week  to  week,  from  month  to  month 
and  from  year  to  year,  until  in  December,  1897,  when  I 
sold  a  half  interest  in  the  paper  to  C.  C.  Slaughter,  of  Dal- 
las, for  just  enough  money — $7,500 — to  pay  the  then  out- 
standing mortgage  and  accrued  interest  held  by  H.  J. 
Chamberlin. 

In  the  meantime,  Mr.  Chamberlin's  presence  in  the  of- 
fice became  practically  unbearable.  Neither  of  us  could 
stand  it  longer.  The  result  was  that  he  and  his  wife  moved 
to  San  Angelo,  but  he  took  with  him  the  best  of  my  type- 
setter operators.  This  was  characteristic  also.  Some  of  the 
notes  against  the  paper  were  maturing,  and  yet,  while 
he  had  often  threatened  to  foreclose,  he  did  not  do 
so.   In  December,  1897,  after  I  had  made  the  sale  of  a  half 


H.  J.  CHAMBERLIN  431 

interest  in  the  paper  to  C.  C.  Slaughter,  I  wrote  him  that 
I  was  ready  to  pay  all  of  his  claim.  Quite  recently  he  had 
been  unduly  insistent  upon  the  payment  of  the  $3,000  of 
notes  then  due.  He  had  threatened  me  and  had  made  one 
visit  to  Waco  for  the  purpose,  as  I  believe,  of  closing  me 
up,  but  if  he  had  done  so,  he  would  have  had  a  property 
that  he  could  not  manage,  and  that  very  situation  doubt- 
less was  what  saved  me.  I  wrote  him  to  send  all  of  his 
notes  to  the  Waco  State  Bank  and  they  would  be  paid. 
This  reached  him  in  one  of  his  good  moods,  so  he  mailed 
the  notes  to  the  bank.  They  reached  Waco  the  second  morn- 
ing thereafter.  Meantime,  I  had  advised  the  cashier,  M.  A. 
Sullivan,  that  I  would  be  ready  to  pay  these  notes.  C.  C. 
Slaughter  had  trusted  me  with  the  money,  $7,500,  and  it 
had  been  deposited  in  the  Waco  State  Bank  for  that  very 
purpose. 

The  morning  the  notes  reached  Waco,  Mr.  Sullivan 
telephoned  me  to  come  to  the  bank  immediately.  When  I 
reached  the  bank,  he  said: 

"  Do  you  want  to  pay  the  Chamberlin  notes  ?  " 
I  said,  "  Most  emphatically  I  do."  He  replied : 
"They  are  here  in  my  hands,  but  there  is  a  telegram 
in  the  bank  that  has  come  since  from  H.  J.  Chamberlin,  in 
which  he  asks  us  to  deny  you  the  privilege  of  paying  the 
notes  and  instead,  return  them  to  him.  /  have  not  seen 
the  telegram.  If  you  want  to  pay  the  notes,  make  your 
check  for  them." 

This  I  did  immediately,  and  the  notes  were  cancelled  and 
handed  me,  marked  paid. 

Mr.  Chamberlin  was  greatly  incensed  at  the  turn  events 
had  taken.  I  was  finally  out  of  his  clutches.  In  subse- 
quent correspondence,  which  I  still  retain,  he  made  the 
very  serious  charge  against  me  that  /  had  sold  mortgaged 
property!  That  was  very  absurd,  but  it  showed  his  temper 
at  the  time.     He  also  afterwards  filed  a  claim  against  me 


432       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

by  letter  of  some  $300,  which  he  claimed  I  should  pay  him. 
I  replied  to  him  that  I  did  not  owe  him  $300,  the  evidence 
being  that  if  I  had  owed  him  that  or  any  other  amount,  he 
would  have  had  his  mortgage  in  due  form  to  cover  the  in- 
debtedness. 

I  have  thus  set  forth  with  some  particularity  the  trans- 
actions between  H.  J.  Chamberlin  and  myself.  I  have 
thought  it  all  the  more  essential  to  do  this,  for  the  reason 
that  he  has  never  lost  an  opportunity  to  talk  me  down.  To 
every  pastor  who  goes  to  San  Angelo,  he  unfolds  his  ghastly, 
gloomy  tale  concerning  me.  This  has  come  to  me  from  more 
than  one  of  them.  I  take  it  that  the  dear  man  still  harbors 
against  me  a  feeling  of  dire  resentment  because  of  the  fact 
that  I  was  able  finally  to  relieve  myself  from  the  indebted- 
ness due  him.  His  transactions  with  me  reminded  me  very 
much  of  the  dealings  o£  the  considerate  cat  with  the  captive 
mouse.  It  is  all  gentleness  and  kindness  at  intervals,  when 
the  mouse  will  be  turned  loose  and  allowed  to  scamper 
away.  But  the  vigilant  cat  never  allows  the  mouse  to  get 
far  enough  to  quite  be  free,  the  ultimate  result  being  that 
the  mouse  is  devoured. 

I  know  a  stanza  that  more  nearly  describes  H.  J.  Cham- 
berlin than  anything  I  could  set  down  here.  It  runs  as 
follows : 

"There  was  a  little  girl 
Who  had  a  little  curl 
That  hung  right  down  over  her  forehead. 
When  she  was  good 
She  was  very,  very  good, 
But  when  she  was  bad,  she  was  horrid." 

This  is  H.  J.  Chamberlin  over  and  over  again.  I  be- 
lieve he  is  a  Christian  man.  At  intervals  his  kindness  to  me 
was  as  spontaneous  and  noble  as  any  generous  service  my 
father  could  have  done  for  me.  But  oh,  when  the  other 
times  came,  it  was  the  H,  E.  &  W.  T.  Railway  over  again. 


H.  J.  CHAMBERLIN  433 

I  think  I  have  told  in  this  chronicle  of  the  old  time  narrow 
guage  road  that  used  to  run  out  from  Houston  to  Lufkin. 
It  was  called  the  H.  E.  &  W.  T.,  which  meant  the  Houston, 
East  &  West  Texas.  It  was  a  horrible  experience  for  a 
traveling  man  to  venture  out  on  that  line,  so  the  drummers 
came  to  say  that  "  H.  E.  &  W.  T."  meant  "  Hell  Every 
Way  You  Take  It."  That  was  H.  J.  Chamberlin  in  one  of 
his  bad  moods,  but  when  he  was  good,  there  was  never  a 
better  man. 

His  beloved  wife,  Mary  Chamberlin,  was  the  very  salt 
of  the  earth.  In  all  of  the  years  through  which  we  were 
related  together  in  this  struggling  enterprise,  she  was  kind- 
ness, sweetness,  gentleness,  and  grace  itself.  Never  a  word 
of  impatience,  never  an  unkind  criticism,  never  a  show  of 
petulance  nor  ill  temper.  Of  her,  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
and  a  few  years  later  God  took  her  to  that  bright  home  on 
high  where,  as  I  verily  believe,  she  is  singing  this  moment 
paeans  of  praise  to  her  Redeemer. 

[Note  by  the  Author. — ^^Since  the  foregoing  was  writ- 
ten, H.  J.  Chamberlin  has  died  and  his  going  made  me  sad. 
I  was  tempted  to  leave  out  all  I  had  written  about  him  ex- 
cept the  praise,  but  upon  maturer  deliberation  I  have  let  the 
history  stand.    His  death  has  not  changed  the  facts.] 


LXVIII 
SOME  PASSING  INCIDENTS 

THE  1893  session  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Conven- 
tion met  at  Nashville.  One  of  its  most  pleasing  in- 
cidents was  the  beginning  of  my  acquaintance  with 
Robert  J.  Burdette.  We  loved  each  other  on  sight.  We  had 
not  been  acquainted  an  hour  before  he  had  accepted  my  in- 
vitation to  come  to  Waco  and  deliver  a  lecture,  the  only 
condition  being  that  all  of  his  expenses  were  to  be  provided, 
and  he  was  to  have  $100  for  the  speech.  The  management 
of  that  lecture  was  my  only  experience  in  the  lyceum  bureau 
business.  I  not  only  came  out  whole  in  the  transaction,  but 
paid  his  expenses  and  the  $100,  together  with  all  the  adver- 
tising and  expenses  and  had  some  money  left.  Until  his 
death  he  and  I  exchanged  greetings  every  year.  He  was 
one  of  the  noblest  men  of  earth  and  I  rejoiced  to  number 
him  among  my  friends.  When  the  disastrous  fire  swept 
The  Baptist  Standard  out  of  existence,  he  was  one  to  send 
his  check  for  $10  to  help  rehabilitate  the  plant.  I  never 
shall  forget  this  kindness,  nor  another  check  that  came,  this 
one  for  $5,  from  John  A.  Broadus. 

The  Baptist  General  Convention  of  Texas  met  m  Octo- 
ber, 1893,  at  Gainesville.  All  the  leaders  were  there.  It 
was  not  a  large  convention.  Texas  Baptists  had  not  yet 
begun  to  know  what  really  great  conventions  meant.  It 
was,  however,  a  harmonious  convention.  S.  A.  Hayden  had 
not  yet  begun  his  criticisms,  though  undoubtedly  he  was 
preparing  therefor.  The  re-election  of  J.  M.  Carroll  as 
Secretary  of  Missions  was  not  opposed  by  Hayden,  and 

434 


SOME  PASSING  INCIDENTS  435 

everything  went  off  smoothly.  The  denomination  was  at 
peace,  except  for  the  fight  on  R.  T,  Hanks,  which  was  still 
being  ruthlessly  waged  by  Hay  den.  This  fight  never  re- 
lented. As  long  as  Hayden  had  a  paper,  he  reveled  in  his 
assaults  upon  Hanks. 

The  year  1893  was  a  panic  year.  The  banks  everywhere 
were  imperiled.  Business  institutions  fell  like  giant  oaks 
before  a  devouring  storm.  My  banker,  W.  W.  Seley,  of 
Waco,  was  continuously  kind  to  me.  I  had  managed  to 
liquidate  the  indebtedness  on  my  little  property  in  Waco.  I 
let  Mr.  Seley  know  that  if  his  bank  should  by  any  means 
get  into  trouble,  I  could  sell  my  property  at  some  figure 
for  cash  and  would  gladly  let  him  have  the  money.  He 
thanked  me  for  the  proffered  kindness,  adding  that  he 
hoped  he  would  not  need  to  take  advantage  of  it,  but  that 
if  he  did,  he  would  feel  free  to  call  upon  me.  He  weathered 
the  storm  happily,  but  I  have  always  felt  glad  that  I  tend- 
ered this  little  mite  of  help  to  him. 

Notwithstanding  the  panic.  The  Standard  lived  and  con- 
tinued to  grow.  The  brethren  in  Texas  as  well  as  in  other 
states,  were  coming  to  recognize  the  paper  as  one  of  the 
leading  exponents  of  the  Baptist  faith.  From  the  beginning 
of  my  connection  with  the  paper,  I  had  established  a  very 
desirable  feature — that  of  the  publication  each  week  of  one 
of  B.  H.  Carroll's  sermons.  In  addition  to  this,  J.  B.  Gam- 
brell,  recognized  as  one  of  the  most  luminous  writers  in  the 
denomination,  was  writing  for  us  practically  every  week. 
These  two  features  alone  attracted  wide  attention  and  in- 
creasing patronage.  During  the  life  of  M.  V.  Smith,  he 
began  a  department  in  the  paper  headed  "Sunday  Morning 
Thoughts."  These  articles  were  really  sermonettes,  and 
took  up  from  one-third  to  one-half  a  column  each  week. 
After  his  death,  at  first  as  much  a  memorial  to  him  as  for 
any  other  reason,  I  continued  this  department,  and  it  re- 
mained a  feature  of  The  Standard  until  I  gave  up  the  edi- 


436       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

torship  of  the  paper.  From  these  "  Sunday  Morning 
Thoughts "  articles,  I  published  two  books,  one  entitled 
Words  of  Comfort,  or  Sunday  Morning  Thoughts,  the  title 
of  which  was  afterwards  changed  to  Courage  and  Com- 
fort, and  the  other,  CranfilVs  Heart  Talks.  The  latter 
book  has  had  a  sale  of  almost  10,000  copies,  and  the 
former  probably  many  thousands  more.  The  books  are  still 
in  print.  No  feature  of  The  Standard  was  more  widely 
appreciated  than  the  "Sunday  Morning  Thoughts."  Even 
now,  after  more  than  twelve  years  down  in  the  ranks,  I 
receive  letters  from  friends  in  various  parts  of  Texas,  as 
well  as  from  widely  separated  districts  in  the  older  states, 
who  recall  this  department  of  The  Standard  and  cherish  the 
memory  of  it  with  grateful  hearts.  I  believe  it  helped  many 
to  nobler,  more  useful  and  more  sympathetic  lives,  and  if  I 
should  ever  re-enter  journalism,  either  religious  or  secular, 
I  would  re-establish  that  department. 

In  addition  to  the  oscillator  press,  bought  to  maintain  the 
independence  of  The  Standard,  we  bought  a  book  press  and 
upon  this  press  were  printing  a  book  of  B.  H.  Carroll's 
sermons.  My  foreman  at  that  time  was  E.  G.  Rust,  one  of 
the  noblest  men  I  ever  knew,  and  one  of  the  most  capable 
foremen.  He  took  great  pride  in  this  book  of  sermons, 
and  when  the  office  was  destroyed  by  fire  January  18,  1894, 
we  had  printed  a  large  number  of  the  pages  of  this  volume. 
They  were  swept  away  in  an  hour,  and  the  plan  of  The 
Standard  to  publish  the  book  was  abandoned.  It  was  our 
plan  to  publish  the  sermons  in  measure  22  ems  wide  in- 
stead of  13  ems  wide,  the  regulation  width  of  a  standard 
newspaper  column.  We  were  enabled  then  to  "  pick  up  " 
this  type  and  print  the  book  pages  from  it.  That  was  be- 
fore the  days  of  the  linotype,  on  which  nearly  all  type-set- 
ting is  done  today.  Later  I  bought  a  Thorne  typesetting 
machine  which  actually  set  type.  In  many  ways  it  was 
a  success,  and  in  other  important  particulars  a  failure.     It 


SOME  PASSING  INCIDENTS  437 

took  three  operators,  all  working  in  conjunction  all  the 
time,  to  successfully  handle  it,  and  this  was  a  great  disad- 
vantage, because  each  one  had  to  be  an  expert.  If  one  of 
your  team  got  sick,  you  were  out  of  gear  all  around.  This 
machine  was  bought  after  the  fire,  and  subsequently  aban- 
doned. 

The  fire  that  destroyed  The  Standard  plant  was  of  mys- 
terious origin.  No  one  has  even  known  how  the  fire  origi- 
nated. I  venture  no  opinion  here.  I  only  know  that  at 
about  eleven  o'clock  at  night  a  messenger  hurried  to  my 
home  and  yelled  that  The  Standard  office  was  burning. 
Quickly  as  possible  I  made  my  way  to  the  office,  and  found 
the  building  then  practically  destroyed,  together  with  all  its 
contents.  We  had  a  carload  of  paper  stored  in  a  nearby 
building,  and  this  was  greatly  damaged.  Our  new  Scott 
printing  pass  was  ruined,  and  all  of  the  work  of  years  went 
up  in  a  few  moments  in  smoke.  We  were  partially  covered 
by  insurance,  but  there  is  never  any  insurance  large  enough 
to  enable  a  man  to  recoup  on  the  destruction  of  a  plant  like 
that.  We  were  hampered  for  weeks  and  months  after- 
wards, having  to  use  the  burnt  sheets  of  paper,  and  being  at 
a  great  disadvantage  in  many  ways. 

But  The  Standard,  Phoenix-like,  rose  from  the  ashes,  and 
came  forth  with  more  zeal  and  energy  than  ever.  I  sent  out 
post  cards  to  most  of  our  list,  advising  them  of  this  disaster 
and  inviting  advance  subscriptions.  I  did  not  ask  a  con- 
tribution from  any  one.  Some  came  regardless.  The  $io 
from  Bob  Burdette  was  one,  and  the  $5  check  from  Dr. 
Broadus  was  to  advance  his  figures  on  the  paper  five  years. 
So  great  was  the  response  from  our  friends  throughout  the 
State  that  their  very  generosity  proved  a  great  subsequent 
calamity.  We  spent  that  money,  and  yet  the  cream  of  our 
subscription  list  was  paid  from  three  to  five  years  ahead, 
and  we  had  to  stand  for  it.  It  worked  a  disastrous  hard- 
ship upon  us  in  the  years  to  follow — a  fact  we  could  not 


438       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

at  that  time  possibly  foresee.  In  rehabilitating  the  printing 
plant,  H.  J.  Chamberlin  advanced  other  funds,  as  has  been 
already  told.  His  nobility  and  kindness  in  this  crisis  will 
never  be  forgotten.  He  was  really  bereaved  when  The 
Standard  printing  office  burned,  and  he  rejoiced  unspeak- 
ably when  we  had  our  new  type  and  presses  and  were  again 
at  work. 


LXIX 
THE  BEGINNING  OF  S.  A.  HAYDEN'S  ASSAULTS 

ONE  of  the  men  to  send  an  advance  subscription  to 
The  Standard  was  J.  M.  Carroll,  then  secretary  of 
all  the  Baptist  mission  work  in  Texas.  The  amount 
was  $5,  and  his  sympathetic  note,  together  with  those  of 
many  other  friends,  was  published  in  the  paper.  This 
seemed  to  be  the  incident  that  started  Hay  den.  It  may  not 
have  been.  He  may  simply  have  taken  this  occasion  to 
open  his  warfare.  I  shall  not  attempt  here  to  analyze  his 
motives.  The  concrete  fact  was  that  when  the  State  Mis- 
sion Board  met  at  Waco  in  April,  1894,  S.  A.  Hayden  read 
there  a  paper  containing  outright  assaults  upon  the  State 
Mission  Board,  and  particularly  on  the  secretary.  These 
assaults  were  resisted  and  resented,  with  the  result  that  the 
most  direful  denominational  situation  ever  known  among 
the  Baptists  of  the  world  was  speedily  precipitated.  Coin- 
cident with  this  assault  upon  the  State  Mission  Board  and 
J.  M.  Carroll,  S.  A.  Hayden  began  a  series  of  annoyances 
of  B.  H.  Carroll.  It  began  by  his  seeking  to  secure  for  his 
publication  the  night  sermons  of  B.  H.  Carroll.  He  pub- 
lished long  and  labored  editorials,  in  which  he  glowingly 
commended  the  night  sermons  as  against  the  day  sermons, 
claiming  that  the  night  sermons  were  heart-to-heart  ser- 
mons, while  the  morning  sermons  were  head-to-head  ser- 
mons. He  went  so  far  as  to  engage  B.  F.  Stuart,  who  had 
reported  many  sermons  for  me,  to  take  these  night  sermons 
for  him.  Dr.  Carroll  was  unwilling  that  this  should  be 
done.    At  first,  without  giving  the  matter  due  consideration, 

439 


440       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

he  had  agreed  that  Hayden  should  make  a  trial  of  these 
night  sermons,  but  when  they  actually  were  published  in 
Hayden's  paper,  they  were  so  immature  and  so  poorly  pub- 
lished that  B.  H.  Carroll  wrote  to  Hayden  not  to  publish 
any  more  of  them.  This  injunction  went  absolutely  un- 
heeded, and  thus  Hayden  sent  his  reporter  into  the  church 
to  report  the  sermons,  regardless. 

This  was  only  one  of  the  by-plays  of  the  tragical  events 
that  then  began  and  stretched  over  a  period  of  more  than 
a  dozen  years.  The  Southern  Baptist  Convention  met  at 
Dallas  in  1894.  This  was  the  month  following  Hayden's 
opening  gun.  He  was  still  in  good  standing  in  his  church 
at  Dallas,  and  was  made  a  delegate  to  the  Southern  Baptist 
Convention.  To  me  this  Convention  was  in  more  than  one 
respect  a  memorable  one. 

The  1894  Convention  of  the  Baptists  of  Texas  met  at  Mar- 
shall. This  was  the  convention  in  which  a  change  was  made 
in  the  president  of  the  body.  For  some  years,  Rufus  C. 
Burleson,  president  of  Baylor  University,  had  also  been  pres- 
ident of  the  Convention.  He  was  a  known  out-and-out  sym- 
pathizer with  S.  A.  Hayden,  though  greatly  beloved  by  all. 
On  account  of  his  known  and  out-spoken  sympathy  with 
Hayden  and  his  policies,  the  friends  of  the  organized  work 
deemed  it  wise  to  secure  a  president  who  would  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  Convention,  its  secretary  and  its  operative 
measures.  On  that  account,  R.  C.  Buckner,  the  beloved 
founder  and  manager  of  the  Buckner  Orphans  Home,  was 
nominated  for  president  against  R.  C.  Burleson.  These  were 
loved  and  trusted  leaders,  and  many  who  found  themselves 
forced  by  the  very  exigencies  of  the  case  to  vote  for  R.  C. 
Buckner  as  against  R.  C.  Burleson,  were  most  reluctant  to 
do  so. 

S.  A.  Hayden  was  there  in  all  his  strength  and  shrewd- 
ness. The  Mission  Board  had  published  and  circulated  a 
pamphlet  in  which  they  had  answered  the  charges  he  had  filed 


S.  A.  HAYDEN'S  ASSAULTS  441 

against  the  Board  and  secretary  at  the  April  Board  meeting 
at  Waco.  He  asked  the  privilege  of  replying  to  this,  and 
kept  the  floor  fourteen  hours!  The  body  adjourned  from 
session  to  session  with  him  still  on  the  floor  and  talking.  It 
was  a  monumental  outrage,  but  the  brotherhood  had  not  as 
yet  become  educated  to  his  methods,  and  the  result  was 
that  they  were  milling  around  in  the  dark,  not  knowing  which 
way  to  turn. 

At  that  meeting  J.  M.  Carroll  resigned  as  Secretary  of 
Missions,  and  M.  D.  Early  was  chosen  to  take  his  place. 
Thus  there  passed  from  leadership  in  the  mission  work  of 
Texas  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  capable  workers  Texas 
Baptists  have  ever  known.  He  went  down  before  the  shafts 
of  unjust  and  unholy  criticism,  and  left  a  field  in  which  he 
was  transcendently  and  happily  useful. 


LXX 
A  LULL  BETWEEN  THE  STORMS 

THE  year  1895  was  uneventful  in  the  onward  move- 
ment of  the  Texas  Baptist  work.  The  Standard 
made  its  way  quietly  along,  advancing  step  by  step, 
growing  in  popular  favor,  in  circulation  and  in  strength 
as  a  Baptist  journal.  After  the  fire  of  1894,  I  abandoned 
the  plan  of  publishing  on  our  own  presses  the  volume 
of  sermons  by  B.  H.  Carroll,  I  went  to  Philadelphia  and 
sold  the  manuscript  to  Dr.  A.  J.  Rowland,  Secretary  of  the 
American  Baptist  Publication  Society,  for  $1000.  Under 
our  arrangement  Dr.  Carroll  and  I  shared  this  amount  be- 
tween us,  all  of  the  expenses  coming  out  of  my  half.  I 
have  had  few  greater  joys  than  that  of  taking  him  a  check 
for  $500  as  his  part  of  the  proceeds  of  this  first  book.  It  was 
well  deserved  and  there  has  not  been  published  from  any 
American  press  a  volume  of  greater  sermons  than  is  this 
volume,  which  is  still  extant  and  doing  its  wonderfully  great 
work  for  the  cause  of  Christ. 

The  Baptist  General  Convention  of  Texas  for  1895  met 
at  Belton.  Meantime,  The  Texas  Baptist  and  Herald  was 
comparatively  quiet.  It  was  sowing  seed  all  the  time,  but 
not  with  that  energy,  bitterness  and  rancor  that  character- 
ized its  work  during  1894,  and  that  gathered  force  and 
violence  pending  the  Convention  of  1896. 

J.  B.  Gambrell  had  been  one  of  the  valued  and  regular 
contributors  to  The  Standard  from  its  inception.  As  editor 
and  manager  of  the  paper,  I  paid  him  $5  for  each  article  he 
sent  us.    The  articles  were  strong  and  very  valuable  and  were 

442 


A  LULL  BETWEEN  THE  STORMS        443 

featured  as  one  of  the  chief  inducements  for  subscriptions. 
Throughout  the  South,  The  Standard  was  gaining  as  a  paper 
for  Baptist  preachers.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  them 
had  enrolled  their  names  upon  our  list,  and  Dr.  Gambrell's 
articles  had  weight  with  these  and  aided  us  much  in  achiev- 
ing this  splendid  addition  to  our  subscription  list. 

During  the  summer  of  1895  Dr.  Gambrell  was  employed 
as  joint  editor  of  the  paper.  We  began  by  paying  him 
$2500  a  year,  but  later  it  was  found  impossible  to  maintain 
so  large  a  salary  for  him.  His  connection  with  the  paper 
was  gratefully  appreciated  by  our  friends,  but  the  financial 
condition  of  the  paper  was  not  such  as  to  justify  so  large 
an  outlay  for  the  work  of  one  man.  Our  plan  at  first  was 
that  he  should  look  after  the  exploitation  of  our  subscrip- 
tion list  beyond  the  Mississippi  River.  He  visited  the  State 
Conventions  of  several  States,  and,  in  so  far  as  he  was  able, 
popularized  the  paper  wherever  he  traveled.  However,  the 
practical  returns  from  his  canvassing  were  meagre.  He 
agreed  later  on  that  we  should  reduce  his  salary  to  $150  a 
month,  which  was  done,  and  this  amount  was  being  paid 
to  him  when  he  came  to  the  Convention  at  Houston  in 
1896.  I  was  very  anxious  that  he  should  attend  the  Hous- 
ton Convention,  and  this  he  did,  and  I  was  glad  to  furnish 
the  transportation,  on  account  of  his  Baptist  Standard  con- 
nection, for  that  journey. 

M.  D.  Early  was  Secretary  of  Missions  and  was  conduct- 
ing the  work  as  best  he  could.  There  was  an  inevitable  re- 
duction both  in  contributions  and  in  work  accomplished. 
The  tares  that  had  been  sown  the  year  before,  and  were 
then  being  sown  by  S.  A.  Hayden's  paper,  were  bearing 
their  fruit  of  inertia  and  do-nothingism.  This  greatly  ham- 
pered M.  D.  Early  in  his  work.  He  was  a  man  of  activity 
and  zeal,  and  deserved  to  achieve  greater  things  than  came 
to  him  in  this  secretarial  connection. 

The  Baptist  General  Convention  of  1896  met  at  Houston. 


444       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

Preceding  the  Convention,  S.  A.  Hayden  and  his  paper 
were  perhaps  at  their  very  worst.  The  gravest  charges  were 
made  in  his  publication  from  week  to  week  against  the 
workers  in  general,  and  particularly  against  me  as  former 
corresponding  secretary.  It  was  a  regular  socialistic  cam- 
paign, conducted  upon  the  lowest  plane  to  which  a  publi- 
cation can  possibly  descend.  The  Texas  Baptist  and  Herald 
demanded  an  itemized  statement  of  all  my  accounts. 
Hayden  evidently  was  unaware  of  the  fact  that  it  was  easy 
to  make  this  statement.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  he 
had  been  apprised  that  the  reports  that  had  been  lost  were 
simply  the  reports  of  missionaries,  he  disregarded  these 
statements,  and  clamored  loud  and  long  for  an  itemized 
statement  of  all  of  the  work  under  my  administration. 

Meantime,  a  remarkable  thing  had  occurred.  At  the  Con- 
vention of  1892,  John  T.  Battle,  Treasurer  of  the  Conven- 
tion, raised  my  books  in  his  hands  and  said  what  has  already 
been  quoted  from  him.  When  he  went  home  to  Waco,  the 
books  were  still  in  his  custody.  They  never  again  came  into 
my  possession.  By  a  strange  fortuity,  he  laid  these  books 
away  at  his  home  in  Waco  and  forgot  where  he  put  them. 
This  added  fuel  to  Hayden's  flame  of  criticism  and  distrac- 
tion. He  did  not  at  that  time  really  know  that  these  books 
were  in  existence.  The  rest  of  us  knew  it,  but  we  did  not 
know  where  they  were.  Brother  Battle  was  greatly  dis- 
turbed concerning  the  books  and  resorted  much  to  prayer. 
After  praying  most  earnestly  upon  one  occasion  about  this 
matter,  it  suddenly  dawned  upon  him  where  he  had  placed 
these  records.  He  went  right  to  the  receptacle  in  which  he 
had  laid  them  nearly  four  years  before,  and  found  them. 
There  was  great  joy  in  the  camps  of  Israel  when  this  dis- 
covery became  known.  We  felt  that  the  cause  was  most 
happily  conserved  by  this  incident,  which  came,  as  we  be- 
lieved then,  and  as  I  believe  now,  as  a  direct  answer  to 
prayer. 


A  LULL  BETWEEN  THE  STORMS         445 

At  the  next  meeting  of  the  State  Mission  Board,  I  re- 
quested that  these  books  all  be  re-audited.  This  was  pleas- 
ing to  all  the  members  of  the  Board.  The  Board  also  made 
a  report  covering  the  distractions  which  the  Texas  Baptist 
and  Herald  had  aroused  throughout  the  State.  The  report 
was  one  of  the  strongest  ever  promulgated  by  the  State 
Mission  Board  of  Texas.  It  was  the  work  of  B.  H.  Car- 
roll, as  all  who  were  familiar  with  the  facts  then  knew. 

When  the  Convention  met  at  Houston,  the  whole  denomi- 
nation were  on  the  qui  vive  for  developments.  The  Mis- 
sion Board  had  recommended  that  Hayden  be  denied  a  seat 
in  the  Convention.  On  the  question  of  the  adoption  of  this 
section  of  the  report,  there  were  grave  differences  of  opinion 
even  among  the  more  thoughtful  and  conservative  members. 
At  that  time,  Hayden's  strength  in  Texas  was  great.  He 
still  presided  over  the  destinies  of  the  old  and  long  estab- 
lished newspaper,  and  had  a  very  strong  following,  includ- 
ing R.  C.  Burleson,  one  of  the  rarest  men  of  any  period  of 
Texas  Baptist  history.  His  alignment  with  Hayden  was 
the  strongest  asset  that  Hayden  ever  had  at  any  time. 

The  result  of  the  Houston  Convention  was  heart-rending 
in  every  way.  The  great  host  of  Texas  Baptists  who  had 
foregathered  there  were  held  in  that  city  for  days  on  days, 
listening  to  nothing  whatever  except  the  fuss  that  Hayden 
had  stirred  up.  At  my  request,  a  committee  was  appointed 
to  re-audit  my  books,  and  this  was  most  carefully  done.  The 
members  of  that  committee  were  among  the  most  thoughtful 
brethren  in  the  State.  It  had  been  very  judiciously  ap- 
pointed, and  one  of  the  committee  was  F.  M.  McConnell, 
afterwards  Superintendent  of  the  Texas  Baptist  Mission 
work  of  the  State.  These  brethren  went  over  all  of  my 
books,  item  by  item,  made  a  statement  that  was  as  clear 
as  a  silver  bell,  to  the  effect  that  every  item  had  been  prop- 
erly recorded,  and  that  a  voucher  had  been  exhibited  to  them 
covering  every  disbursement  by  the  Board. 


446       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

One  of  Hayden's  most  active  lieutenants,  S.  J.  Anderson, 
associate  editor  of  his  paper,  moved  the  adoption  of  the 
report,  and  there  was  not  a  negative  vote.  This  incident 
gladdened  all  hearts.  It  was  felt  that  after  such  a  clear 
and  thoughtful  presentation  of  the  entire  case,  with  a  re- 
auditing  of  all  the  books,  Hayden  would  not  only  withdraw 
the  serious  allegations  he  had  made,  but  would  refrain  from 
their  repetition.  This  was  the  one  bright  spot  in  that  Hous- 
ton Convention.  Practically  all  the  other  transactions  of  the 
body  were  laden  with  grief  and  tears. 

The  impression  upon  the  city  of  Houston  was  terrible. 
Outsiders,  who  were  unfamiliar  with  the  inside  facts  and 
only  judged  of  the  brotherhood  by  the  wrangling  in  that 
body,  were  estranged,  not  only  from  Baptists,  but  from  re- 
ligion. Hayden  was  finally  seated,  but  duly  exhorted  that 
in  the  event  he  did  not  cease  his  strife-breeding  agitation, 
he  would  be  reckoned  with  in  future  sessions  of  the  body. 

It  was  during  this  Convention  that,  through  my  influence 
and  the  thoughtful  consideration  of  other  brethren,  the 
hearts  of  the  brotherhood  began  to  turn  to  J.  B.  Gambrell 
as  the  Moses  to  lead  us  out  of  our  wilderness.  He  was  ap- 
proached on  the  matter  at  the  Convention,  but  no  deci- 
sion was  reached.  M.  D.  Early  was  re-elected  secretary, 
but  it  was  understood  between  him  and  the  brethren  whom 
he  served  that  at  any  time  when  a  leader  could  be  found 
who  apparently  would  be  able  to  do  greater  things  for  the 
cause  than  he  had  been  able  to  accomplish,  he  would  hand 
in  his  resignation  and  thus  make  way  for  the  onward  going 
of  the  kingdom  in  the  happiest  possible  manner.  This  was 
noble  in  Brother  Early,  and  should  be  remembered  as  long 
as  Texas  Baptists  have  a  name. 

Following  the  Houston  Convention,  the  brotherhood  met 
in  the  annual  Board  meeting  in  Waco.  Meantime,  confer- 
ences of  one  kind  or  another  had  been  held  with  Dr.  Gam- 
brell and  he  was  invited  to  meet  with  the  Board  at  that 


A  LULL  BETWEEN  THE  STORMS        447 

time.  Through  the  agitations  of  Hay  den  and  his  paper, 
the  Board  had  yielded  here  and  there  until  the  salary  of 
the  secretary,  once  $2500  a  year,  had  been  reduced  by  suc- 
cessive steps  to  $1800  a  year.  When  the  question  was 
finally  considered  at  Waco,  it  was  understood  that  we  would 
not  offer  Dr.  Gambrell  that  small  a  salary,  but  in  order  to 
accomplish  the  result  and  still  not  officially  increase  the  sal- 
ary, a  few  of  us  agreed  to  make  up  the  difference  of  $700 
in  his  salary  in  order  to  enable  him  to  come  to  Texas  and 
take  up  this  work. 

There  was  great  rejoicing  in  all  of  our  hearts  when  he 
finally  decided  to  come.  He  was  at  that  time  in  his  prime, 
and  seemed  the  man  of  the  hour.  He  accepted  the  position 
thus  tendered  him,  and  that  necessitated  his  resignation  as 
joint  editor  of  The  Baptist  Standard.  This  resignation  was 
given  before  he  accepted  the  secretaryship. 

So  great  was  my  love  for  him  that  I  invited  him  to  come 
to  my  home  as  a  member  of  our  family.  It  was  not  practi- 
cable at  that  time  for  him  to  immediately  move  his  family  to 
Waco,  although  it  was  absolutely  essential  that  he  should 
come  upon  the  field  and  take  the  great  work  in  hand.  It 
thus  fell  out  that  for  the  better  part  of  one  whole  year  he 
was  a  member  of  our  family,  not  as  a  boarder,  but  as  an 
invited  guest.  I  would  have  no  more  thought  of  charging 
him  board  than  I  would  have  thought  of  charging  board 
for  my  own  father.  The  relation  thus  began  under  the  new 
auspices  was  a  most  happy  one.  From  the  beginning,  I  was 
not  wholly  in  agreement  with  all  of  Dr.  Gambrell's  policies 
as  secretary,  but  was  largely  so.  He  made  overtures  to 
Hayden,  hoping  thus  to  win  him  to  the  cause,  but  those  of 
us  who  had  more  intimate  knowledge  of  Hayden  knew  that 
it  was  love's  labor  lost.  But  Dr.  Gambrell  was  a  newcomer 
and  had  to  find  out  for  himself — and  he  did. 


LXXI 
NEW  BLOOD  IN  THE  STANDARD 

THE  historic  Convention  among  Texas  Baptists  was 
the  one  which  met  at  San  Antonio  in  November, 
1897.  Between  the  1896  and  the  1897  Conventions, 
S.  A.  Hayden  was  doing  all  that  he  could  to  further  his 
plans.  When  the  Convention  met  in  1897,  there  was  in- 
tense interest  on  every  hand.  The  meeting  was  large. 
During  the  year  past,  Hayden  had  made  much  of  his  align- 
ment with  the  beloved  R.  C.  Burleson,  but  there  were  none 
who  believed  that  Dr.  Burleson  was  at  heart  a  disturber 
or  a  disorganizer.  He  was  growing  old.  His  retirement 
from  the  active  presidency  of  Baylor  University  had  borne 
heavily  upon  his  mind,  and  under  these  conditions  Hayden 
found  him  a  ready  coadjutor.  Hayden  courted  and  magni- 
fied Dr.  Burleson  and  at  the  same  time  very  severely  criti- 
cised the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Baylor  University  for  hav- 
ing retired  Dr.  Burleson  as  president  emeritus  of  that  insti- 
tution. 

It  was  a  glorious  comsummation  at  San  Antonio  when 
Dr.  Burleson,  at  the  instance  and  in  response  to  the  appeal 
of  brethern  whom  he  trusted,  announced  that  he  joyfully 
and  willingly  accepted  the  action  of  the  Board  of  Trustees 
in  retiring  him  as  president  emeritus.  Events  followed 
quickly  and  sensationally.  A  challenge  against  the  right  of 
S.  A.  Hayden  to  a  seat  in  the  body  was  presented  and 
adopted.  This  challenge  was  the  basis  of  the  Hayden  liti- 
gation, which  was  precipitated  the  following  spring. 

Not  to  dwell  upon  intervening  events  with  which  I  had 

448 


Dr.  B.  H.  Carroll. 


Col.  C.  C.  Slaughter. 


NEW  BLOOD  IN  THE  STANDARD        449 

only  relative  concern,  I  will  mention  here  an  incident  which 
changed  the  course  of  my  life.  Early  in  December,  1897, 
I  made  a  visit  to  Dallas.  H.  J.  Chamberlin  was  pressing  me 
for  payments,  and  I  found  myself  facing  what  at  any  time 
might  be  a  foreclosure  of  the  plant.  The  result  was  that 
I  made  the  visit  to  Dallas  to  see  C.  C.  Slaughter,  a  man 
then  recognized  among  Texas  Baptists  as  a  leader  and  a 
philanthropist.  Indeed,  it  was  due  to  his  $25,000  contribu- 
tion, the  largest  that  had  up  to  that  time  been  made  in  Tex- 
as to  Christian  education,  that  the  work  of  the  Texas  Bap- 
tist Education  Commission  was  inaugurated  and  had  prom- 
ise of  success.  It  grandly  succeeded.  All  of  the  Texas 
Baptist  schools  which  entered  into  the  correlation,  were, 
without  any  great  delay,  freed  from  debt. 

I  visited  Dallas  for  the  purpose  of  interesting  Col.  Slaugh- 
ter in  The  Baptist  Standard.  He  was  very  kind  and  cour- 
teous to  me,  and  on  the  day  of  my  visit,  I  took  luncheon 
with  him  at  his  home.  He  made  me  a  proposal  to  pay 
me  $7,500  for  an  undivided  half -interest  in  the  paper  and 
agreed  to  lend  the  new  company  or  corporation  $2,500  as 
a  working  capital.  He  asked  me  to  write  out  the  matter 
as  a  proposal  to  him,  which  I  did  and  later  it  was  accept- 
ed. A  further  understanding  was  that  the  entire  plant  was 
to  be  moved  to  Dallas  and  incorporated.  This  was  done. 
So,  it  fell  out  that  by  January,  1898,  I  had  arranged  the 
matter  with  Col.  Slaughter,  he  became  half-owner  of  The 
Baptist  Standard,  and  on  January  2y,  1898,  with  my  family 
and  all  my  portable  belongings,  I  moved  to  Dallas.  My 
estimate  of  C.  C.  Slaughter  as  a  man,  as  a  Christian,  as  a 
philanthropist,  and  as  a  noble  brother  in  Christ,  is  well 
known  to  those  who  have  kept  informed  concerning  cur- 
rent Baptist  events  in  Texas.  We  have  never  had  among 
us  a  nobler  spirit.  For  five  years  he  and  I  worked  to- 
gether in  fullest  and  completest  harmony  and  friendship, 
and  it  was  only  after  it  seemed  well  for  the  partnership  to 


450       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

terminate  that  I  bought  his  interest  in  the  paper  and  thus 
our  intimate  business  relationship  found  its  end. 

Col.  C.  C.  Slaughter  is  one  of  the  truest  and  most  un- 
selfish men  I  have  ever  known.  He  has  given  of  his  means 
and  time  unstintedly  and  whole-heartedly  to  the  Texas  Bap- 
tist cause.  He  has  had  much  appreciation,  but  I  doubt  if  any- 
thing the  Baptists  of  Texas  could  do  for  him  or  for  his 
loved  ones  would  be  commensurate  with  the  wonderful  ser- 
vice he  has  rendered  the  Baptist  cause. 

In  the  matter  of  his  relationship  with  The  Baptist  Stan- 
dard, I  think  it  well  to  recite  additional  data,  so  that  the 
history  of  this  relation  may  find  full  record.  When  he 
bought  in  with  the  paper,  he  took  a  very  active  interest  in 
its  every  phase,  particuarly  in  the  financial  side  of  things. 

In  every  matter  concerning  the  enterprise,  he  was  its 
strong  right  arm.  He  did  not  in  any  sense  seek  to  domi- 
nate my  editorial  management  of  The  Standard.  On  the 
contrary,  he  rejoiced  in  all  that  I  did,  and  counseled  me  as 
a  father  would  a  son.  He  felt  then  that  the  brotherhood  did 
not  properly  appreciate  the  value  of  The  Standard  as  an 
engine  of  usefulness  among  Texas  Baptists.  That  was 
true  then,  has  been  true  since,  and  is  true  now.  Our  good 
Baptist  people  have  not  as  yet  waked  up  to  the  monumental 
value  of  religious  literature,  and  particularly  of  the  religious 
periodical. 

When  the  beloved  George  W.  Carroll,  of  Beaumont, 
made  large  money  on  account  of  the  fact  that  oil  had  been 
found  on  his  land  at  Beaumont,  it  occurred  to  C.  C.  Slaugh- 
ter that  it  would  be  well  to  have  this  good  man  linked  with 
The  Baptist  Standard.  It  was  an  opinion  in  which  I  heart- 
ily concurred.  So  it  fell  out  that  on  April  20,  1901,  armed 
with  a  letter  from  Col.  Slaughter  to  George  W.  Carroll,  I 
went  to  Beaumont  for  the  purpose  of  interesting  Brother 
Carroll  in  the  publication.  Meantime,  I  had  written  him 
that  I  was  coming  and  he  made  an  appointment  for  me  to 


J.  B.  Cranfill,  at  Age  39,  When  He  Moved  to  Dallas. 


NEW  BLOOD  IN  THE  STANDARD        451 

preach  the  following  day  for  the  Beaumont  Baptists.  This 
visit,  which  eventuated  in  aligning  George  W.  Carroll  with 
The  Standard,  also  was  the  occasion  of  my  becoming  in- 
terested in  the  oil  business. 

I  found  Brother  Carroll  already  interested  in  The  Stan- 
dard, as  he  was  in  every  good  work.  On  account  of  a  de- 
layed train  I  did  not  reach  Beaumont  until  2  p.  m.  Sun- 
day. In  the  meantime,  J.  M.  Carroll,  at  that  time  secretary 
of  the  Texas  Baptist  Education  Commission,  had  come  to 
Beaumont,  and  instead  of  preaching  at  the  church  that 
night  myself,  I  urged  him  to  take  my  place,  which  he  did, 
and  preached  a  remarkable  sermon  on  "  The  Shadow  of 
Peter." 

On  Monday  morning,  I  renewed  my  talk  with  Brother 
Carroll  concerning  The  Baptist  Standard,  with  the  result 
that  he  purchased  a  third  interest  in  the  paper,  giving  there- 
for his  note  without  interest,  payable  one  year  from  its 
date,  for  $16,500.  At  the  then  rate  of  discount,  which  was 
8  per  cent.,  the  note  had  a  present  value  of  $15,180,  and  that 
is  what  Brother  Carroll  paid  for  a  third  interest  in  the 
paper.  It  was  thought  by  some  that  the  price  he  paid  was 
exorbitant.  After  Brother  Carroll  became  thus  interested 
in  the  paper,  I  owned  a  third  of  the  stock,  C.  C.  Slaughter 
owned  a  third  of  the  stock,  and  Brother  George  W.  Carroll 
owned  a  third  of  the  stock.  This  was  essentially  true. 
There  were  five  shares  outstanding  in  the  hands  of  friends 
of  the  paper,  which  had  been  issued  gratuitously  in  order 
that  the  corporation  might  be  complete.  The  capital  stock 
was  $50,000. 

Not  long  after  this  sale  of  the  third  interest  to  Brother 
Carroll,  I  found  that  C.  C.  Slaughter  was  willing  to  part 
with  his  stock  in  the  paper,  and  I  bought  him  out.  The 
basis  of  this  purchase  was  that  we  took  into  account  every 
dollar  that  Col.  C.  C.  Slaughter  had  put  into  the  paper, 
calculated  8  per  cent,  interest  on  the  amount,  and  I  then 


452       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

gave  him  my  check  for  all  that  he  had  ever  put  in,  with  8 
per  cent,  interest  added,  and  this  was  the  price  of  the  stock 
that  I  bought  from  him.  This  made  me  a  two-thirds  owner 
of  the  publication,  and  George  W.  Carroll  a  one-third  owner. 
In  other  words,  I  owned  $16,667  ^ove  of  the  stock  than 
Brother  Carroll  owned. 

Being  desirous  of  having  Brother  Carroll  as  an  equal 
owner  with  me  in  the  publication,  I  then  gave  to  him  out- 
right, without  charging  him  a  penny,  $8,333  worth  of 
the  stock,  making  him  thus  an  equal  or  half -owner  of  The 
Standard  with  me.  George  W.  Carroll  paid  for  an  undi- 
vided one-half  interest  in  The  Standard  $15,180.  I  think 
now  that  I  made  a  mistake  in  giving  him  this  stock,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  he  is  one  of  the  biggest-hearted 
and  one  of  the  noblest  men  I  have  ever  known.  I  after- 
wards regretted  it  because  I  thus  weakened  myself  in  my 
relation  to  my  own  enterprise. 

Following  this  arrangement  with  Brother  Carroll,  he  and 
I  joined  hands  in  a  great  campaign  to  place  The  Standard 
in  the  home  of  every  Baptist  pastor,  church  clerk,  associa- 
tional  clerk  and  associational  moderator  in  the  Southern 
States.  In  that  endeavor  we  handsomely  succeeded.  We 
contributed  to  the  publication  $7,500  each  in  order  to  make 
this  plan  successful.  At  the  end  of  this  campaign.  The 
Standard  had  reached  the  high  water  mark  of  its  circulation 
in  all  its  history — a  bona  fide  list  approximating  30,000. 

When  I  finally  retired  from  connection  with  The  Baptist 
Standard  in  May,  1904,  I  sold  the  remaining  half  interest  in 
the  paper  to  George  W.  Carroll  for  $10,000  in  notes,  so  the 
net  result  was  that  he  paid  for  the  entire  plant  $25,180,  and 
in  order  to  silence  all  critics,  if  any  now  survive,  I  am  will- 
ing at  any  time  to  pay  that  amount  for  the  paper,  and  own 
it  again.  And,  having  made  it,  I  know  how  to  edit  it  and 
run  it. 


LXXII 
THE  HAYDEN  LITIGATION 

APRIL  28,  1898,  S.  A.  Hayden  filed  a  suit  against 
a  number  of  Texas  Baptists  for  $100,000  damages, 
basing  the  suit  upon  the  challenge  which  was  sub- 
mitted at  the  San  Antonio  Convention  and  which  resulted  in 
his  being  denied  a  seat  in  that  body.  Among  the  defendants, 
my  name  came  first.  Others  included  were  C.  C.  Slaughter, 
and  many  Baptists  of  prominence  in  the  State.  This  was  the 
most  remarkable  law  suit,  all  things  considered,  ever  tried 
in  any  State.  It  was  without  precedent  in  Christian  annals, 
and  there  has  been  nothing  like  it  since.  It  covered  a  period 
of  seven  years,  the  exact  date  of  its  settlement  being  April 
28,  1905.  There  were  four  trials  of  the  case,  all  of  them 
in  the  court  of  which  Richard  Morgan  was  judge. 

I  have  never  seen  on  the  bench  such  a  partisan  as  was 
Judge  Morgan  in  these  trials.  The  trials  averaged  two 
months  each.  In  the  first  trial,  Hayden  secured  a  judgment 
for  $30,000;  the  two  succeeding  trials  resulted  in  hung 
juries;  in  the  fourth  trial,  he  secured  a  verdict  of  $15,000, 
which  on  May  12,  1904,  was  reversed  by  the  Texas  Supreme 
Court. 

A  remarkable  illustration  of  the  uncertainties  of  litigation 
was  the  attitude  of  the  Civil  Court  of  Appeals,  which  sits  at 
Dallas.  When  the  first  verdict  of  $30,000  was  secured  by 
Hayden,  it  was  sweepingly  reversed  by  the  Court  of  Civil 
Appeals  of  this  city.  When  the  final  judgment  of  $15,000 
was  secured,  this  same  court  affirmed  it,  but  this  latter  judg- 
ment was  reversed  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

453 


454       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

I  once  thought  there  was  something  which  could  be  posi- 
tively identified  as  the  law,  but  there  really  is  no  law  except 
the  last  decision  of  some  court.  These  courts  make  and  un- 
make laws  in  the  most  haphazard  fashion. 

When  Hayden's  suit  was  first  filed,  none  of  us  thought  of 
it  as  a  serious  matter.  It  was  considered  as  one  of  the  evo- 
lutions in  his  campaign  of  agitation  and  disturbance.  But 
little  did  we  then  know  of  the  complexion  of  courts  or  juries. 
I  emerged  from  this  litigation  with  the  conviction  that  courts 
are  not  courts  of  justice,  but  oftener  courts  of  injustice.  My 
experience  with  Judge  Morgan  was  such  as  to  shake  my 
reverence  for  the  judicial  ermine.  It  is  not  that  I  hold  the 
judiciary  in  contempt,  because  if  I  did  I  would  be  put  in 
jail,  but  I  was  certainly  for  almost  seven  mortal  years  in 
absolute  contempt  of  Judge  Morgan  and  his  court  and  am 
today.  It  is  possible  that  his  bias  in  the  case  arose  from  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  member  of  another  denomination  and  de- 
lighted to  see  this  disturbance  among  the  Baptists.  If  he  had 
been  a  paid  attorney  in  the  case,  he  could  not  have  worked 
harder  for  Hayden  than  he  labored  during  those  long  and 
harrowing  years. 

Another  thing  about  this  trial  was  the  wonderful  composi- 
tion of  the  juries.  The  juries  were,  as  a  rule,  from  the 
most  ignorant  classes.  Sitting  there  in  the  jury  box  dur- 
ing these  four  trials  were  men  who  knew  no  more  about 
theology  or  Baptist  polity  than  a  cow  knows  about  millinery. 
They  deliberated  in  their  ignorant  way  and  brought  in  their 
verdicts,  not  according  to  the  testimony,  but  according  to 
their  prejudices  and  the  mouthings  of  Hayden's  attorneys. 
The  theory  is  that  a  man  is  entitled  to  a  trial  by  a  jury  of 
his  peers,  but  to  count  any  one  of  the  jurors  in  that  case  as 
the  peer  of  B.  H.  Carroll  or  George  W.  Truett  would  be  the 
ghastliest  joke  ever  perpetrated.  The  Hayden  agitation  and 
litigation  was  carried  forward  during  the  reign  of  Populism. 
After  these  trials  had  ended,  Populism  by  that  name  waned 


THE  HAYDEN  LITIGATION  455 

in  our  State,  but  it  is  still  with  us  under  different  forms. 
During  those  trials  there  were  a  number  of  Populistic  jurors 
and  these,  of  couse,  sympathized  with  Hayden.  The  wonder 
is  that  there  were  two  hung  juries,  and  the  greater  wonder 
is  that  the  juries  that  assessed  these  damages  did  not  give 
Hayden  larger  verdicts.  They  were  built  that  way,  and 
in  view  of  the  partisan  attitude  of  Judge  Morgan,  the  dia- 
bolical atmosphere  of  the  court  room — all  court  atmospheres 
are  diabolical  to  me — and  the  permeation  of  the  entire  State 
by  the  wave  of  Populism,  I  feel  that  we  escaped  most  luckily 
to  have  received  no  more  abitrary  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
this  crowd  than  came  to  us. 

This  litigation  was  Hayden's  great  asset.  He  lived,  moved 
and  had  his  being  in  contention  and  distraction.  The  lawsuit 
fed  his  passion  for  agitation  and  disturbance,  and  at  the 
same  time  furnished  him  an  excuse  for  constant  and  tearful' 
appeals  to  his  following  for  additional  funds.  No  one  will 
ever  know  how  much  money  he  received  in  response  to  these 
appeals.  I  doubt  if  he  knows  himself.  His  deluded  sup- 
porters, feeling  that  he  was  the  victim  of  diabolical  perse- 
cution at  the  hands  of  what  he  was  pleased  to  term  "  the 
Board  Party,"  flocked  to  him  in  countless  numbers,  and 
from  their  pockets  he  extracted  many  a  lean  dollar  which 
in  time  he  either  passed  over  to  his  printers  or  his  attor- 
neys. 

Finally,  I  settled  the  litigation  on  my  own  motion.  I  be- 
lieved then  and  believe  now  that  in  making  this  settlement 
the  best  thing  for  the  Baptist  cause  and  for  the  defendants 
was  done. 

The  details  of  the  settlement  are  that  I  paid  $ioo  in  each 
case,  (there  being  three  cases  on  the  docket,)  and  all  the 
costs  of  the  suits.  The  costs  alone  aggregated  something 
like  $6,000.  This  I  paid,  and  paid  it  all.  There  was  never 
a  Baptist  in  the  State  to  extend  to  me  one  atom  of  help  on 
this  very  burdensome  outlay.    The  only  one  that  helped  me 


456       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

at  all  was  Col.  W.  L.  Williams,  now  deceased,  who  had  re- 
ceived a  warrant  from  the  court  as  a  witness  in  the  case. 
When  he  found  I  had  to  pay  the  costs,  he  declined  to  allow 
me  to  pay  his  warrant,  but  instead,  canceled  it  and  sent  it 
to  me.  The  amount  was  $25.  Outside  of  this,  neither  de- 
fendant, preacher,  layman  nor  missionary  helped  me  to  the 
amount  of  one  poor  postage  stamp. 

I  do  not  complain  at  this.  The  years  have  passed  and 
my  family  and  I  have  had  our  three  meals  a  day,  our  cloth- 
ing and  a  place  to  sleep.  It  is  now  more  than  eleven  years 
since  these  cases  were  settled,  and  looking  back  upon  it  all, 
I  have  no  regrets  for  the  course  I  pursued.  While  there 
was  quite  a  little  agitation  and  discussion  at  the  time  among 
the  defendants  and  some  busybodies,  I  believe  that  after  the 
suits  were  settled,  and  after  Hayden  quickly  lapsed  into 
denominational  inactivity,  all  of  the  brotherhood  agreed  that 
the  wisest  and  best  thing  had  been  done. 

This  litigation,  all  told,  cost  me  directly  some  $25,000, 
and  indirectly  much  more.  It  forced  me  to  sell  the  Cran- 
fill  building  for  $75,000,  which  I  afterwards  sold  as  agent 
for  $250,000.  If  that  loss  of  $175,000  is  taken  into  ac- 
count, the  Hayden  litigation  cost  me  $200,000.  Through 
all  these  persecutions  there  were  two  men  who  always  gave 
their  money,  and  who  never  flinched.  Those  men  were 
J.  B.  Gambrell  and  George  W.  Truett. 


LXXIII 
SOME  DETAILS  OF  LITERARY  WORK 

THE  first  tract  or  pamphlet  that  I  ever  published,  and 
of  which  I  still  have  a  copy,  was  Dr.  Carroll's  great 
sermon  on  The  Agnostic,  which  came  from  the  press 
of  The  Gatesville  Advance  in  1884. 

My  first  book  was  the  first  volume  of  Dr.  B.  H.  Carroll's 
sermons,  which  appeared  in  1895.  The  details  of  its  pro- 
duction are  given  in  another  place. 

The  first  of  my  own  books  was  Words  of  Comfort,  or 
Sunday  Morning  Thoughts,  and  was  an  octavo  volume  of 
more  than  500  pages,  illustrated  by  Frank  Beard,  at  that 
time  artist  on  The  Ram's  Horn,  of  Chicago.  The  copyright 
of  this  volume  was  sold  to  The  Southwestern  Publishing 
Company,  of  which  P.  B.  Jones  was  manager.  Later  he 
issued  a  new  edition,  made  into  a  subscription  book,  and 
changed  the  title  to  Courage  and  Comfort,  or  Sunday  Morn- 
ing Thoughts.  He  retained  nearly  all  of  the  Frank  Beard 
illustrations,  added  others,  and  embellished  the  work  by  a 
new  copious  and  flattering  introduction.  The  sale  of  this 
book  has  run  into  thousands,  and  it  is  still  extant.  It  can 
now  be  had  at  $2.50  a  copy. 

The  third,  another  of  my  own  books,  entitled  Cran fill's 
Heart  Talks,  was  published  in  1906  after  I  became  editor 
of  The  Baptist  Tribune.  This  is  a  i2mo  volume  of  some- 
thing  over  400  pages.  The  first  edition  of  10,000  is  all  gone 
except  a  few  copies. 

The  greatest  of  my  literary  labors  has  been  the  publica- 
tion of  Carroll's  Interpretation  of  the  English  Bible.     At 

457 


458       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

the  time  this  chapter  is  written,  (June  19,  1916,)  ten  vol- 
umes of  this  Interpretation  have  been  issued,  as  follows: 
Revelation,  Genesis,  Exodus-Leviticus,  Numbers  to  Ruth, 
The  Pastoral  Epistles,  The  Four  Gospels,  Volume  I ;  The 
Four  Gospels,  Volume  II;  The  Acts;  James,  Thessalonians, 
Corinthians,  and  Daniel  and  the  Inter-Biblical  Period. 
There  are  three  others  to  follow. 

I  regard  the  production  of  Carroll's  Interpretation  of  the 
English  Bible  as  my  greatest  achievement.  There  was  no 
other  man  in  whom  were  combined  all  the  elements  that 
rendered  the  publication  of  this  great  work  possible.  When 
I  am  gone  I  will  be  glad  to  have  my  friends  think  of  Car- 
roll's Interpretation  of  the  English  Bible  as  my  monument. 

In  addition  to  this  interpretation  of  the  Bible  I  have  pub- 
lished two  additional  volumes  of  Dr.  B.  H.  Carroll's  ser- 
mons, one  entitled  Evangelistic  Sermons,  and  the  other 
Baptists  and  Their  Doctrines.  I  have  in  hand  much  rich  ser- 
monic  material  of  Dr.  Carroll's,  which  I  hope  to  yet  give  to 
the  public  in  other  volumes. 

It  was  my  pleasure  to  publish  in  1907,  a  History  of  Texas 
Baptists,  written  by  Dr.  B.  F.  Riley,  which  did  not  have  a 
very  large  sale  on  account  of  the  fact  that  the  extra  copies, 
as  well  as  all  the  material  pertaining  to  the  work,  were  des- 
troyed by  fire  after  the  volume  appeared. 

In  191 5  in  conjunction  with  Rev.  J.  L.  Walker  I  prepared 
and  published  R.  C.  Buckner's  Life  of  Faith  and  Works.  It 
was  well  for  the  wonderful  achievements  of  this  great  and 
good  man  to  be  thus  preserved  in  permanent  literary  form, 
and  this  labor  of  love  I  perfomed  with  a  cheerful  heart,  be- 
cause I  not  only  wished  to  honor  the  man  himself,  but  to 
magnify  the  great  work  he  has  done  in  founding,  managing 
and  maintaining  the  Buckner  Orphans'  Home. 

And,  of  course,  I  wrote  this  Chronicle.  I  wrote  it  every 
word.  I  did  not  ask  anyone's  help  upon  it  for  two  reasons. 
One  was  that  I  did  not  wish  to  share  the  glory  of  writing  it 


SOME  DETAILS  OF  LITERARY  WORK     459 

with  any  other,  and  the  other  was  that  I  did  not  want  him  to 
take  the  responsibility.  The  indulgent  reader  is  to  be  the 
judge  of  this  literary  production,  for  which  I  ao  not  claim 
any  very  great  merit,  but  I  do  wish  my  grandfather  had 
written  something  of  this  kind  to  be  handed  down  to  me,  so 
I  could  have  known  a  little  more  about  him  and  his  an- 
cestors. 

In  191 5  it  was  my  pleasure  to  publish  the  first  volume  of 
sermons  by  George  W.  Truett,  entitled  We  Would  See 
Jesus  J  and  Other  Sermons.  I  had  long  wished  to  perform 
this  service,  but  it  was  only  after  years  of  effort,  and  with 
the  co-operation  of  Mrs.  Josephine  Jenkins  Truett,  the  great 
preacher's  noble  and  amiable  wife,  that  I  was- able  to  secure 
his  consent  for  this  volume  to  appear.  Now  that  he  has  been 
convinced  of  the  good  that  this  initial  volume  of  discourses 
has  done  and  is  doing,  I  have  the  hope  that  I  shall  publish 
many  additional  volumes  of  his  great  sermons. 

My  literary  work  has  been  and  is  among  the  happiest  and 
most  useful  of  my  life  work.  The  little  side-issues  of  busi- 
ness do  not  carry  with  me  a  feather's  weight  when  com- 
pared with  usefulness  in  the  production  of  work  of  endur- 
ing value.  The  tragedy  of  life  is  that  we  fritter  so  much 
of  our  time  away  upon  nonentities,  and  so  many  of  us  lose 
the  main  point,  thus  missing  that  high  usefulness  that  might 
be  ours. 


LXXIV 

AS  A  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  TEACHER 

IF  I  ever  possessed  any  gift,  it  was  the  gift  of  teaching. 
I  have  never  claimed  a  great  abundance  of  knowledge, 
but  the  Lord  blessed  me  with  the  gift  of  imparting 
such  knowledge  as  I  possessed.  When  I  joined  the  Mission- 
ary Baptist  Church  at  Gatesville,  I  soon  thereafter  took  a 
class  in  the  Sunday-school,  of  which  Y.  S.  Jenkins  was 
superintendent,  and  John  P.  Kendrick,  assistant.  Mine  was 
the  leading  Bible  class.  I  began  to  teach  this  class  in  the 
early  months  of  1883,  and  taught  it  constantly  until  I  left 
Gatesville  in  December,  1886.  It  was  a  joyful  experience. 
In  that  class  were  Dr.  J.  R.  Raby  and  his  noble  wife ;  Stoner 
Raby,  now  one  of  the  leading  physicians  of  Gatesville,  but 
who  at  that  time  was  quite  a  young  man  not  yet  out  of 
school ;  Miss  Dola  Bledsoe,  daughter  of  the  venerable  Rev. 
J.  S.  Bledsoe,  who  lived  to  a  great  age  and  died  but  a  few 
years  ago  at  Waxahachie. 

When  we  moved  to  Waco  I  joined  Dr.  Carroll's  Bible 
class.  W.  H.  Jenkins  was  superintendent  of  the  Sunday- 
school,  John  T.  Battle,  assistant  superintendent,  and  Luther 
W.  Bagby,  secretary.  It  was  not  long  after  my  removal  to 
Waco  until  Dr.  Carroll's  increasing  duties  rendered  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  continue  his  teaching,  and  I  was  elected 
as  his  successor.  During  all  of  the  balance  of  my  residence 
in  Waco,  covering  a  period  of  ten  years  or  more,  I  was 
teacher  of  this  class.  Dr.  Carroll  was  the  best  teacher  of 
the  Bible  I  ever  knew.  He  knew  more  of  the  Bible  than 
any  man  I  ever  knew,  and  in  the  highest  degree  ever  known 

460 


AS  A  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  TEACHER        461 

to  me  had  the  faculty  and  facility  of  teaching  God's  Word. 

When  I  moved  to  Dallas  January  27,  1898,  I  at  once 
joined  the  First  Baptist  Church.  Rev.  George  W.  Truett 
had  accepted  the  call  to  the  pastorate  of  this  church  Sep- 
tember, 1897,  and  it  was  my  joy  to  be  connected  with  the 
church  of  which  he  was  pastor.  For  the  past  thirty  years 
I  have  had  but  two  pastors,  B.  H.  Carroll  and  George  W. 
Truett,  and  they  have  both  been  classed  among  the  greatest 
preachers  of  any  age  or  clime.  Coming  to  Dallas,  I  asked 
for  the  privilege  of  organizing  a  class  of  my  own.  This  was 
granted  to  me,  and  so  I  organized  a  Bible  class  for  men  and 
women,  and  taught  it  for  many  years.  With  only  a  slight 
interregnum  I  have  been  a  teacher  in  the  Sunday-school  of 
the  Dallas  First  Church  ever  since  I  came  here. 

In  1912  I  was  chosen  to  teach  the  Baraca  class  of  the 
First  Baptist  Church.  Of  all  the  work  of  teaching  in  the 
Sunday-school  this  is  to  me  the  happiest.  I  know  of  no 
Sunday-school  teaching  work  more  pleasant  or  more  blessed 
than  that  of  teaching  from  150  to  250  men  each  Sabbath 
morning.  I  love  this  work  with  an  unspeakable  devotion, 
and  shall  always  cherish  with  a  grateful  heart  the  friend- 
ship and  fellowship  of  this  wonderfully  great  class.  Since 
my  incumbency  as  teacher  the  class  has  had  as  its  presidents, 
Joe  Durham,  William  Golds  worthy,  George  Thedford,  Ches- 
ley  Brown,  and  John  Dillon — as  noble  a  company  of  Chris- 
tian workers  as  it  has  ever  been  my  pleasure  to  know.  It 
would  delight  me  much  if  I  had  space  in  this  chronicle  to 
give  the  name  of  every  one  of  this  class,  but  this  is  obviously 
impossible.  Through  the  passing  of  the  years  there  have 
come  and  gone  in  this  class  perhaps  1,500  to  2,000  men 
whose  lives  I  have  thus  been  blessed  to  touch,  and  who  have 
been  unselfishly  helpful  to  me. 

One  of  my  greatest  joys  has  been  to  help  young  men,  and 
this  great  class  has  furnished  opportunities  for  usefulness 
I  could  not  otherwise  have  had.     Let  all  these  dear  men 


462       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

know  that  I  love  them  every  one,  and  that  their  faces  are 
graven  in  my  heart. 

Mark  this  word  in  this  connection :  The  best  way  to  learn 
the  Bible  is  to  teach  the  Bible.  The  other  word  is,  dear 
reader,  that  unless  you  attend  the  Sunday-school,  and  study 
the  Bible  in  the  Sunday-school,  my  great  fear  is  that  you 
do  not  study  God's  Word  at  all.  Ignorance  of  the  Bible 
is  one  of  the  most  appalling  evils  of  our  times.  If  I  were 
to  name  the  second  greatest  work  of  my  life,  it  would  be 
that  of  my  service  as  teacher  of  the  Bible  in  the  various 
Sunday-schools  where  my  church  membership  has  been  held. 


B.  H.  Carroll^  Jr.^  Consul  to  Venice,  Italy. 


LXXV 
AS  AN  EDITOR 

BEGINNING  editorial  life  February  i,  1881,  as  ed- 
itor of  The  Turner sville  Effort,  I,  for  the  time  be- 
ing, closed  my  editorial  career  April,  1907,  when  I 
sold  The  Baptist  Tribune  to  The  Baptist  Standard.  Be- 
tween these  periods  I  was  editor  of  The  Gatesville  Advance, 
established  1882;  The  Waco  Advance,  daily  and  weekly, 
established  1887;  The  State  Mission  Journal,  established 
1890;  The  Baptist  Standard,  established  1892,  and  The 
Baptist  Tribune,  established  1905.  In  these  various  edito- 
rial connections  I  was  not  only  editor,  but  business  manager 
as  well. 

With  the  single  exception  of  the  Waco  Daily  Advance, 
published  during  the  prohibition  campaign  of  1887,  I  made 
money  out  of  each  of  these  publications.  The  State  Mis- 
sion Journal  was  the  official  organ  of  the  Baptist  State  Mis- 
sion Board  when  I  was  superintendent  of  missions,  and 
while  it  was  issued  monthly,  it  was  a  paying  investment  for 
the  Board. 

Editors  are  not  difficult  to  find — that  is,  editorettes.  There 
are  regiments  of  men  who  count  themselves  capable  of  high 
editorial  distinction,  but  the  combination  of  editor,  writer 
and  business  manager  is  rare  indeed. 

My  chief  editorial  distinction  is  in  the  fact  that  I  estab- 
lished The  Baptist  Standard,  which  is  still  extant,  and 
which,  during  the  passing  of  the  years,  has  been  the  strong 
right  arm  of  all  our  Texas  Baptist  work.  After  I  gave  up 
The  Standard  it  passed  through  numerous  managements,  but 

463 


464       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

under  every  one  of  its  editors  it  has  stood  for  the  organ- 
ized work  of  Texas  Baptists,  and  so  stands  today. 

I  never  touched  any  newspaper  that  did  not  achieve  phe- 
nomenal success.  Every  one  of  them  not  only  increased  in 
circulation,  but  made  money.  In  some  instances  the  finan- 
cial returns  were  not  large,  but  I  never  conducted  a  paper 
that  did  not  have  more  subscribers,  a  better  standing  and 
a  wider  influence  when  I  surrendered  it  than  it  had  when  my 
connection  with  it  began. 

May  I,  1907,  I  went  to  Chicago  and  became  joint  editor 
of  The  Associated  Prohibition  Press,  which  position  I  held 
for  several  months. 

In  this  connection  I  give  an  extract  from  an  article  which 
appeared  in  The  Baptist  Standard  July  24,  1902,  from  the 
pen  of  Dr.  J.  B.  Gambrell.    It  is  as  follows: 

I  like  Dr.  J.  B.  Cranfill,  editor  of  The  Standard,  and  believe  in 
him  as  a  Christian,  true  to  his  Master,  and  as  a  man  of  great  ability 
and  of  genuine  nobility  of  character;  but  I  have  not  stood  by  The 
Standard  on  personal  grounds.  I  have  stood  by  it  as  I  have  seen 
men  give  their  lives  on  a  battlefield  to  protect  a  battery,  because  it 
was  essential  to  guard  the  field  and  win  the  battle.  The  Standard 
is  a  tremendous  engine  of  power  to  conserve  and  advance  the  cause 
of  Jesus  Christ.  I  am  for  The  Standard  and  its  editor  for  what 
they  are  and  for  what  they  do.  It  is  a  true  and  able  paper,  edited 
by  a  man  who  loves  the  cause  and  helps  it.  I  love  the  paper  and  the 
editor  as  servants  of  God  and  His  people,  and  I  would  count  myself 
unworthy  of  a  place  in  the  ranks  of  true  men  if  the  shameless  at- 
tacks on  them  could  influence  me  to  desert  either.  Dr.  Cranfill  is 
an  able  man  in  many  ways.  He  is  a  strong  business  man  and  might 
easily  run  a  great  railroad.  He  pays  his  debts.  No  printer  has  ever 
been  robbed  of  hard-earned  money  by  him.  He  commands  the 
confidence  of  men  in  the  highest  business  circle,  because  he  deserves 
to  stand  well.  He  is  honest  and  capable.  He  is  liberal  and  pro- 
gressive. *  *  *  *  J.  B.  Cranfill  is  regarded  well  in  business 
circles,  he  is  a  noble  giver  and  a  friend  to  all  good  things. 


Rev.  E.  p.  West,  Pastor  Tabernacle  Baptist  Church, 
Houston,  Texas. 


LXXVI 
GIVING  UP  THE  BAPTIST  STANDARD 

IN  May,  1904,  I  voluntarily  retired  from  the  editorial 
management  of  The  Baptist  Standard.  When  this 
autobiography  was  first  planned  I  meant  to  give  cir- 
cumstantially the  sorrowful  incident  that  led  to  the  sever- 
ance of  my  relations  with  this  great  work,  but  upon  more 
mature  deliberation  I  reached  the  conclusion  that  no  good 
could  now  come  from  the  resurrection  of  the  painful  and 
heart-rending  details  of  the  unhappy  event  which  led 
to  the  greatest  cataclysm  that  has  come  into  my  life.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  that  I  at  that  time  felt  it  my  duty  to  retire 
from  the  field  of  usefulness  in  which,  while  I  had  suffered 
much,  I  feel  was  the  greatest  throne  of  power  and  service 
with  which  my  life  ever  has  been  blessed. 

I  loved  The  Standard  as  a  father  loves  a  child.  Begin- 
ning its  publication  when  it  had  a  circulation  of  6,000,  I  left 
it  the  strongest,  most  virile,  and  most  influential  Baptist 
journal  in  the  Southern  States.  When  I  gave  up  The 
Standard  it  numbered  among  its  subscribers  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  active  and  influential  Baptist  pastors,  not  only 
in  Texas  and  the  South,  but  throughout  the  entire  United 
States.  I  gave  to  the  paper  the  flower  of  my  life.  As  its 
editor  for  more  than  twelve  years,  I  had  piloted  the  enter- 
prise through  the  stormiest  and  most  harassing  period  in 
the  Baptist  history  of  any  state,  had  transmuted  its  weak- 
ness into  strength,  and  had  transformed  the  $4,000  deficit 
with  which  it  started,  into  a  substantial  business  asset  worth 
in  cash  not  a  cent  less  than  $25,000  net. 

465 


466       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

All  my  life  I  have  been  too  quick  to  reach  decisions. 
When  I  surrendered  the  editorship  of  The  Baptist  Standard 
I  acted  upon  the  advice  of  thoughtful  brethren,  who,  as  I 
believed,  had  the  interest  of  the  Baptist  cause  at  heart. 
Moreover,  they  expressed  great  love  for  me.  It  is  useless 
to  set  their  names  down  here.  Many  have  been  the  changes 
time  has  wrought  through  the  passing  of  the  years.  In  my 
own  decision  and  course  of  action  I  meant  good  to  all,  and 
evil  to  none.  Acting  upon  what  seemed  to  be  sound  and 
fraternal  counsel,  as  well  as  upon  my  own  convictions,  I 
sold  all  my  stock  in  The  Baptist  Standard  to  George  W. 
Carroll,  and  left  the  enterprise  to  other  hands. 

In  the  light  of  the  after  years  I  know  that  I  made  a  colos- 
sal blunder.  Certainly,  insofar  as  my  own  life  work  was  in- 
volved, I  gave  up  a  field  of  almost  unexampled  usefulness, 
and  lapsed  into  the  secularities  of  commercial  nonentities. 
If  I  had  this  part  of  my  career  to  traverse  again,  all  the 
king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men  would  not  be  sufficiently 
potential  to  separate  me  from  the  work  to  which  I  am  sure 
God  called  me,  and  in  which,  as  I  believe,  I  would  have  had 
higher  and  more  glorious  usefulness  in  the  after  years  than 
I  had  hitherto  enjoyed.  This  brings  on  more  talk,  and  it  is 
plain  talk. 

Any  man  is  a  colossal  idiot  who  allows  any  man  or  ag- 
gregation of  men,  however  noble,  however  worthy,  and 
however  pure  in  motive,  to  make  his  decisions  for  him. 

I  record  this  word  just  here  as  a  heritage  for  young  men 
everywhere. 

There  is  another  fact  in  human  nature  that  we  may  not 
ignore.  I  had  been  heralded  and  proclaimed  as  a  great  edi- 
tor, doing  a  transcendent  work.  Scores  and  scores  of 
brethren  had  referred  to  me  as  a  "  born  editor,"  and  even 
yet,  now  and  then,  some  old-time  friend  will  say  to  me, 
"  Cranfill,  you  are  the  best  editor  Texas  Baptists  ever  had." 
All  of  that  is  beautiful  and  gratifying,  but  when  a  man  has 


B.  J.  Robert,  President  B.  J.  Robert  Book  Co. 


GIVING  UP  THE  BAPTIST  STANDARD     467 

voluntarily,  or  involuntarily,  been  displaced,  there  are  al- 
ways currents  and  counter-currents  to  make  his  displace- 
ment permanent. 

In  this  connection  there  have  been  many  to  express  the 
hope  that  I  would  some  day  be  called  back  to  the  work 
of  The  Standard.  To  all  of  these  I  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude 
that  cannot  be  put  into  words. 

It  is  easy  for  a  man  to  keep  sweet  and  maintain  a  cheer- 
ful spirit  when  he  is  in  active  service  and  occupies  a  place 
of  honor  and  usefulness,  but  this  becomes  very  difficult  in- 
deed when  a  man  is  down  and  out,  when  his  erstwhile 
friends  are  fallen  away  from  him,  and  when  other  men 
occupy  his  place  of  former  usefulness  and  service  in  direct- 
ing the  destinies  of  the  people  who  once  turned  their  hearts 
toward  him. 

While  the  difficulties  along  this  line  were  almost  insur- 
mountable, I  thank  God  that  my  sorrow  did  not  break  my 
spirit,  nor  were  the  disappointments  and  surprises  that  en- 
sued allowed  to  sour  rny  life.  I  have  gone  on  as  best  I 
could  in  more  obscure  and  humbler  ways  in  serving  hu- 
manity and  God.  As  to  how  well  this  has  been  done  the 
men  who  have  known  me  best,  and  with  whom  I  have 
labored  must  be  left  to  judge. 

In  this  connection  I  record  grateful  thanks  to  four  men 
who  came  to  me  when  my  heart  was  broken.  When  the 
shadows  enshrouded  me  they  put  their  arms  around  my 
neck,  told  me  they  loved  me,  and  gave  me  words  of  hope 
and  cheer.  Three  of  these  men — B.  J.  Robert,  E.  P.  West 
and  Harvey  Carroll — met  me  at  the  station  when  I  reached 
Nashville.  Their  faces,  always  dear  to  me,  shone  that  night 
with  a  light  that  I  hitherto  had  never  seen,  and  their  kind- 
ness has  been  singing  in  my  heart  through  all  the  passing 
years.  It  is  to  honor  these  three  men  that  full-page  por- 
traits of  all  of  them  are  given  in  this  book.  I  want  my 
children,  their  children,  and  all  that  shall  follow  on,  to  know 


468       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

who  were  my  sympathetic,  helpful  friends  when  my  hour 
of  stress  and  trial  came.  B.  J.  Robert  is  at  the  head  of  the 
B.  J.  Robert  Book  Company  of  Dallas;  Rev.  E.  P.  West 
is  pastor  of  the  Tabernacle  Baptist  Church  at  Houston, 
Texas,  and  Harvey  Carroll,  now  B.  H.  Carroll,  Jr.,  is 
United  States  Consul  at  Venice,  Italy.  God  bless  them  each 
and  all  this  day  and  every  day,  and  raise  up  for  them  kind 
friends  with  tender,  loving  hearts,  when  come  their  hours 
of  tragedy  and  tears ! 

The  other  man  whose  life  and  love  shall  be  enshrined 
forever  in  my  heart  was  Rev.  N.  A.  Seale,  who  in  May, 
1904,  was  pastor  at  Mount  Pleasant,  Texas.  When  I  re- 
turned from  Nashville  I  was  not  only  broken  in  heart,  but 
sorely  wounded  in  spirit.  Having  left  Dallas  to  be  gone 
for  several  days,  my  family  were  away,  and  I  was  thus  left 
in  the  house  literally  alone.  When  Rev.  N.  A.  Seale  heard 
of  my  sorrow,  he  came  all  the  way  from  Mount  Pleasant 
to  Dallas  to  be  with  me.  He  came  into  my  lonely  home,  and 
spent  the  long  hours  of  the  day  and  night  there  with  me, 
giving  me  out  of  his  loyal,  noble,  manly,  generous,  sympa- 
thetic Christian  heart  a  love  surpassing  knowledge.  He  too 
had  known  sorrow.  One  by  one  three  of  his  children,  after 
having  reached  manhood  and  womanhood,  had  been  called 
to  the  land  eternal.  In  those  times  of  sad  bereavement  he 
had  known  my  own  heart's  love  for  him,  and  when  my 
Waterloo  had  come,  he  was  the  one  man  in  all  the  world 
who  came  into  my  home,  took  me  to  his  heart  and  lingered 
with  me  while  the  night  was  darkest  and  the  burden  heavi- 
est to  bear. 

There  were  many  well  meaning  brethren  who  criticised 
me  sorely,  some  in  public,  and  many  in  private.  They  sowed 
seeds  that  I  believe  many  of  them  regretted  they  had  sent 
abroad.  I  give  none  of  the  names  of  these  brethren  here. 
That  I  have  suffered  much  they  all  now  know,  and  many, 
who  were  harsh  then  because  they  knew  little  of  the  real 


Rev.  N.  a.  Seale,  Taken  While  Pastor  at  Gatesville. 


GIVING  UP  THE  BAPTIST  STANDARD     469 

facts,  are  friendly  to  me  now,  and  we  work  hand  in  hand 
and  heart  to  heart  in  the  Master's  service. 

If  I  were  placed  back  amid  the  same  environments  that 
then  were  mine,  I  would  not  sell  my  interest  in  The  Baptist 
Standard  to  George  W.  Carroll,  or  any  other  man,  for  any 
price,  nor  would  I,  at  the  behest  of  any  man  or  men,  vacate 
a  field  of  usefulness  which,  by  long  years  of  toil  and  sac- 
rifice I  justly  occupied. 

I  say  none  of  this  in  unkindness  or  in  bitterness.  The 
men  who  counseled  me  then  meant  all  for  the  best.  I  for- 
get everything  of  unhappiness  in  connection  with  it,  and 
only  recite  these  facts  here  in  order  to  be  true  to  history. 


LXXVII 

AS  A  BUSINESS  MAN 

IN  the  first  draft  of  this  autobiography  I  wrote  in  detail 
an  account  of  my  connection  with  the  oil  business,  but 
after  revision  and  re-revision,  reading  and  re-reading,  I 
decided  as  I  did  concerning  the  incident  detailed  in  the 
preceding  chapter — that  no  good  could  come  from  the  cir- 
cumstantial recital  of  these  transactions.  However,  I  feel 
that  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  say  some  words  concerning 
my  activities  in  business. 

Happily,  or  unhappily — I  know  not  which — I  was  en- 
dowed with  an  aptitude  for  many  things.  The  pages  that 
have  gone  before  recited  my  connection  with  many  different 
lines  of  effort  and  achievement.  Happily  or  unhappily — 
again  I  know  not  which — I  succeeded  in  every  line  of  en- 
deavor in  which  I  ever  labored.  As  a  teacher,  as  a  beard- 
less young  phrenologist,  as  a  physician,  as  a  country  editor, 
as  editor  of  a  prohibition  paper  of  state- wide  and  national 
circulation,  as  financial  secretary  of  Baylor  University,  as 
superintendent  of  the  Texas  Baptist  Mission  work,  as 
founder  and  editor  of  The  Baptist  Standard,  as  a  life  in- 
surance man,  as  editor  of  The  Baptist  Tribune,  as  a  dealer 
in  real  estate — indeed,  in  each  and  all  of  these  lines  of  ef- 
fort I  achieved  more  than  average  success. 

I  have  not  catalogued  in  the  foregoing  recital  the  work  of 
preaching  the  gospel,  for  the  reason  that  I  have  never  count- 
ed my  ministry  a  successful  ministry  on  account  of  the  fact 
that  I  have  not  devoted  to  it  that  singleness  of  heart  or 
purpose  this  God-given  work  demanded.     I  was  never  a 

470 


AS  A  BUSINESS  MAN  471 

pastor,  never  sought  to  be  a  pastor,  and  was  never  called 
to  a  pastorate.  When  I  was  superintendent  of  the  Texas 
Baptist  mission  work  the  church  at  Bonham  sent  a  com- 
mittee to  enquire  if  I  would  consider  a  call  to  that  church, 
but  it  was  then  impossible  for  me  to  relinquish  the  task  I 
had  in  hand,  and  so  I  gave  them  a  negative  answer. 

All  my  life  I  have  had  some  simple  rules  in  business.  The 
first  is  honesty,  the  second  promptness,  the  third  industry. 
I  thank  God  that  I  am  able  to  say  in  this  chronicle  that  any 
man  who  deems  it  worth  while  may  take  the  back  track  of 
my  life  and  scrutinize  my  business  transactions  with  a  micro- 
scope. He  will  find  that  while  any  man  of  my  aggressive 
temper  and  positive  convictions  will  have  made  enemies,  he 
will  at  the  same  time  discover  that  wherever  I  have  lived 
I  have  left  behind  me  a  record  of  uprightness  in  business 
dealings,  and  in  debt-paying  honesty. 

I  have  considered  promptness  one  of  the  chiefest  adorn- 
ments of  the  successful  business  man.  A  little  while  ago  I 
was  impressed  with  what  Miss  Katie  Daffan,  the  capable 
superintendent  of  the  old  women's  home  at  Austin,  said 
to  me  when  speaking  of  the  virtue  of  promptness :  "  Yes, 
Dr.  CranfiU,  each  and  every  one  of  us  should  be  true  to 
every  engagement  we  make,  and  this  has  been  my  plan 
through  life,  but  you  can  never  know  how  much  time  I  have 
lost  by  being  on  time.  I  have  had  to  sit  around  from  fif- 
teen minutes  to  an  hour  every  time  I  have  ever  promptly 
met  with  an  official  board,  waiting  for  other  members  to 
arrive."  The  good  woman  was  right,  but  none  of  this 
should  deter  any  one  of  us  from  promptly  keeping  every 
engagement. 

It  has  been  my  rule  in  life  to  join  hands  with  my  fellow 
citizens  wherever  I  have  lived  in  every  movement  for  the 
up-lift  and  betterment  of  the  neighborhood,  village,  town 
or  city.  I  am  a  member  of  the  Dallas  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, was  for  years  chairman  of  the  Trinity  River  Navi- 


472       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 

gation  Committee,  I  completely  financed  a  ten-story  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  building  for  Dallas,  which  would  now 
have  been  a  Dallas  land-mark  but  for  the  opposition  of  sel- 
fish business  interests ;  I  have  assisted  at  all  times  in  street 
improvements  and  other  progressive  measures,  and  in  short, 
I  count  that  I  have  been,  and  am,  a  good  citizen. 

While  as  a  business  man  I  have  met  with  a  measure  of 
success,  I  have  had  one  great  fault  which  I  set  down  here 
as  a  warning  to  all  who  shall  follow  after.  I  have  always 
attempted  more  than  I  could  reasonably  hope  to  accomplish. 
In  this  way  I  have  over-invested  and  over-bought,  and  while 
I  have  always  protected  my  credit  and  met  my  obligations, 
I  would  have  had  a  much  easier  time  in  life  if  I  had  not  so 
often  bitten  off  more  than  I  could  have  reasonable  hope  that 
I  could  chew. 

I  have  been  careful  with  my  credit.  Without  boasting,  I 
can  say  that  at  my  bank  I  have  as  strong  a  line  of  credit  as 
any  man  of  my  means.  At  my  bank  my  word  passes  cur- 
rent, and  this  is  true  in  my  relations  with  the  business  men 
with  whom  I  have  to  deal. 

I  have  no  patience  with  the  shyster  or  trickster.  No  per- 
manent success  can  come  to  a  man  who  resorts  to  sharp 
practices  in  business.  Absolute  honesty,  uprightness  and 
truthfulness  are  the  foundation  stones  upon  which  all  en- 
during business  success  must  ever  rest. 


LXXVIII 
TWO  FRIENDS  AND  THEIR  LETTERS 

AMONG  the  cherished  friends  who  have  been  mine,  I 
am  thinking  of  two  whose  friendship  never  wavered 
through  the  passing  of  the  years.  One  has  gone  on 
to  be  with  Christ.  When  B.  H.  Carroll  went  home,  the  king- 
liest  preacher,  the  most  lovable  leader,  and  the  gentlest- 
hearted  Christian  among  us  left  the  walks  of  men.  He  had 
the  rarest  talent  for  unfailing  friendship  it  has  ever  been 
mine  to  know.  When  I  first  met  him  he  was  39  years  old. 
When  he  died  he  was  over  70.  Through  all  the  intervening 
years  the  friendship  that  began  when  first  we  met  grew  and 
strengthened,  and  none  of  the  sorrows  that  came  to  me 
served  in  the  smallest  degree  to  estrange  him,  or  to  becloud 
the  affectionate  love  he  cherished  for  me  from  the  first. 
Among  the  highly  prized  possessions  that  now  I  have  is  a 
letter  he  wrote  me  under  date  August  14,  19 13.  I  give 
herewith  a  facsimile  reproduction  of  that  letter,  and  publish 
it  here  just  as  it  came  to  me,  as  follows: 


473 


BavAlimfetfrn  Saptlet  ellrpologtral  ^^nttnarg 


B.  H.  CARROUL.  P»«tiomT 
»  O.  SOX  )• 

Jlort  IQortl}.  9fxi0 
August  14th,   19X3. 


Dr.J.S.Cranfill, 

720  Slaughter  Bldg., 
Dallas,  Texas. 

Denr  Brother: 

I  have  juet    received  your  letter  inquiring  of 
my  present  state  of  health.     I  was  three  weeks  at  Corpus, 
and  greatly  benefitted.     I  have  improved  much  more  elnoe 
I   returned.     It   is  never  very  hot   on  Seminary  Hill;    it 
Is  astonishing  what  a  cool  breeze  we  have  here  all  the 
time,      I  am  much  improved  in  condition  since  you  saw  me 
last,   but   I  will  never  be  well  of  ray  heart  trouble.     It 
remains  a  question  yet  to  be  decided  to  what   extent  I 
can  resume  my  Seminary  lectures.     It   is  my  full  purpose 
to  commence  with  the  beginning  of  next   session,   but  the 
question  is  of  my  holding  out,   as  I  rauyt  necessarily 
live  an  exceedingly  quiet  and  careful  life  for  the  re- 
mainder of  my  days,    eating  little,   avoiding  all  excite- 
ments and   shocks  of  any  kind* 

We  have  taken  in,    so  far,   notes  to  the  amount 
of  Sl50,000  new  endowment   in  this  year's  campaign  for 
five  hundred  thousand  dollars.     We  expect  to  report  at 
least  $300,000  raised  by  the  meeting  of  the  Convention, 
and  will   keep  on  until  we  get  all  the  rest   of  it.     The 
Seminary   Faculty  and   student  body     have  donf;  glorious 
evangelical  worst  during  this  vacation. 

If  I  were  a  little  bit   stronger  I  would  ask 
you  to  send  me  the  proof  of  Exodua  and  Leviticus  before 
It   goes  to  press.     We  hope  to  have  this  book  by  the 
opening  of   the  session,    so  that   I   can  carry  on  lessons 
in  both  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

Until  the  text    is  before  me  I    could  not    reply 
to  your  inquiry  concerning  the  first  three  plagues.  As 
soon  as  I   have  before  me  exactly  what   I   said,    I  will 
give  you  my  reasons  for  saying   it,    or  admit  that    it  was 
wrong  to  say  it, 

I   greatly  appreciate  the  tenderness  of  your 
concern  in  my  behalf,   and  can  truly  say  that   your  loving 
kindness  never  changes.     I   think  when  I   come  to  the  end 
of  my  life,   I  think  I  will   have  to  euirait   that   you  were 
my  best   friend  in  all  ray  life. 


Dr.  and  Mrs.  R.  C.  Buckner  and  Mrs.  Bobbie  (Buckner)  Wester- 
field,  ON  Their  Return  From  Their  World  Tour. 


TWO  FRIENDS  AND  THEIR  LETTERS      475 

Another  friend  whose  friendship  I  always  associate  with 
that  of  B.  H.  Carroll  is  R.  C.  Buckner.  I  met  him  first  at 
about  the  same  time  that  I  met  B.  H.  Carroll.  He  took  me 
to  his  heart  at  once,  and  through  every  change  and  trial  that 
has  come  to  me  or  to  him  since  then,  we  have  grown  to  love 
each  other  more,  and  now  that  he  has  reached  his  four  score 
and  almost  four  years,  I  love  him  more  than  I  ever  loved 
him  in  the  past,  and  there  is  no  man  living  whose  friendship 
I  cherish  more.  In  this  connection  I  take  pleasure  in  giving 
a  letter  which  he  wrote  me  when  he  was  on  his  tour  around 
the  world.  This  was  written  on  an  ocean  liner  from  Col- 
ombo, Isle  of  Ceylon,  under  date  June  23,  1913.  In  his 
characteristic  way  Dr.  Buckner  begins  the  letter  with  this 
couplet : 

"Where  Ceylon's  spicy  breezes 
Blow  soft  o'er  India's  plains." 
Dr.  J.  B.  Cranfill, 

Dallas,  Texas. 
My  Dear  Friend  and  Brother : 

I  have  written  you  twice  on  our  tour  around  the  world,  and 
have  sent  you  some  postal  cards.  Have  no  knowledge  as  to  whether 
any  of  them  have  reached  you,  and  cannot  give  you  any  address 
now,  so  that  you  might  reach  me  with  a  reply,  but  this  morning 
as  our  ship  pulls  out  from  this  port,  my  thoughts  turn  to  you, 
and  my  heart  prompts  me  to  write  you  a  real  love  letter.  As  we 
went  through  a  great  vegetable  market  in  Ceylon,  by  far  the  great- 
est fruit  and  vegetable  market  I  have  ever  seen,  I  thought  that  if 
you  were  here  you  would  have  been  over-delighted.  It  abounds 
in  the  finest  possible  specimens  of  every  tropical  fruit  I  had  any 
knowledge  of,  and  many  I  had  never  heard  of  or  read  about. 

Many  things  all  along  our  journey  over  the  Pacific,  the  eastern 
seas  and  straits,  and  other  waters,  have  turned  my  thoughts  back 
to  you,  possibly  the  very  best  and  most  affectionate  friend  I  have 
among  all  the  men  of  this  earth.  I  expect  to  see  you  again — have 
no  doubt  about  it — but  whether  anything  shall  prevent  or  not  I 
want  to  assure  you  that  I  know  that  I  know  you,  and  I  hold  you 
in  the  very  highest  esteem  as  a  friend,  a  Christian  brother,  a  real 
Baptist  preacher,  as  an  editor  and  writer  with  no  superior,  after 
my  taste  and  judgment.     I  honor  you,  I  love  you.    With  no  man 


476       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

living  have  I  been  on  such  unselfish,  unlimited  terms  of  all  abound- 
ing-friendship  and  love,  and  I  want  you  to  never  forget  this,  and 
never  to  regard  any  mortal  as  a  better  friend  than  I  am.  If  I 
could  not  believe  all  over  in  J.  B.  Cranfill,  then  I  could  not  believe 
in  any  man  on  this  earth  at  the  present  day. 

You  have  often  opened  your  heart  to  me,  and  mine  has  often 
been  opened  and  stands  open  to  you.  I  need  and  always  shall 
need  just  such  a  friend  as  I  know  you  to  be.  After  I  finish  this 
trip  around  the  world  and  get  back  home,  I  shall  want  to  see  you 
very  soon,  and  I  shall  want  us  to  be  oftener  together. 

This  has  been  a  wonderful  journey  to  me,  and  God  has  greatly 
blessed  me  in  every  way.  I  have  written  much,  preached  often, 
lectured  frequently,  have  used  more  than  a  half  dozen  interpreters 
in  addressing  people  of  different  dialects,  and  some  of  them  sev- 
eral times.  Have  never  grown  weary,  but  have  sometimes  felt 
sorry  for  my  fatigued  interpreters.  Whether  on  ship  or  in  pulpit, 
in  schools  or  hospitals,  anywhere,  at  all  times  I  have  had  full 
strength  of  body  and  voice,  and  have  been  at  home.  Have  not 
missed  a  meal  or  a  night's  rest.  Have  traveled  some  sixteen  thou- 
sand miles  on  ships,  and  have  not  been  seasick  except  one  little 
heaving  spell  when  first  we  sailed  from  'Frisco  out  on  the  "heav- 
ing" ocean.  Wife  and  Bobbie  are  also  splendid  sailors.  Wife 
has  materially  gained  in  health.  Bobbie  is  also  well.  We  left 
Hal  and  Robert  Beddoe  and  their  families  well.  Our  next  port  is 
to  be  Aden,  seven  full  24-hour  days  from  where  we  now  are.  Then 
500  miles  through  the  Red  Sea  to  Suez,  and  next  to  Port  Said. 
When  we  reach  the  latter  place,  if  conditions  will  at  all  allow,  we 
shall  go  to  Jerusalem  and  see  some  things  in  the  regions  where 
our  Lord  lived,  worked  and  died  for  us.  Most  people  say  that  it 
will  not  do  to  go  into  Palestine  at  this  season.  As  I  said  to  some 
friends  who  advised  against  this  visit  to  the  Orient,  I  will  not  be 
"bull-headed,"  will  not  attempt  it  if  you  seriously  object,  but  I 
think  we  shall  go. 

I  know  you  pray  for  us.  I  seriously  need  that  you  shall.  I 
feel  my  entire  dependence  upon  the  guidance  and  sustaining  grace 
of  God.  Give  my  love  to  anybody  who  cares  to  hear  from  us — 
certainly  your  own  friends. 

Your  Brother  in  Faith  and  Works, 

R.  C.  BUCKNER. 


Dr.  J.  T.  Harrington,  "The  Beloved  Physician." 


LXXIX 

SOME  DOCTORS  I  HAVE  KNOWN 

FREQUENTLY  in  this  chronicle  the  name  of  Dr.  R.  H. 
Chilton  has  appeared  as  an  oculist  to  whom  I  applied 
for  eye  treatment  when  I  was  almost  blind.  Later 
Dr.  Chilton  formed  a  partnership  with  Dr.  John  O.  McRey- 
nolds,  and  when  Dr.  Chilton  died  Dr.  McReynolds  inherited 
me  as  an  eye  patient.  Soon  he  formed  a  partnership  with 
Dr.  Dero  E.  Seay,  and  these  good  men  have  been  of  infinite 
help  to  me  through  the  years.  I  do  not  exaggerate  when  I 
say  that  more  than  once  Dr.  McReynolds  has  saved  me  from 
blindness,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  in  thinking  of  my  friends, 
and  of  men  who  have  helped  me,  his  name  is  among  those 
at  the  head  of  the  list.  He  is  one  of  the  leading  oculists  of 
America,  and  his  partner.  Dr.  Seay,  also  ranks  high. 

Among  other  oculists  I  have  known  I  am  thinking  of  Dr. 
Sleight  of  Battle  Creek,  Michigan,  who,  when  my  daughter. 
Miss  Mabel  Cranfill,  who  was  visiting  there,  was  threatened 
with  blindness,  from  granulated  lids,  saved  her  eyes,  and 
radically  cured  them. 

Among  other  physician  friends  I  think  of  Dr.  W.  D.  Jones 
and  Dr.  H.  B.  Decherd,  who  are  also  eye  specialists,  and 
who  are  among  the  most  courteous  professional  gentlemen 
known  to  me. 

Another  physician  friend  of  mine,  and  one  whom  I  most 
tenderly  love,  is  Dr.  J.  T.  Harrington  of  Waco.  I  met  him 
first  at  Abilene  in  1894.  While  in  attendance  upon  the  ses- 
sion of  the  State  Baptist  Sunday-school  Convention  I 
needed  the  services  of  a  physician.    I  went  to  Dr.  Harring- 

477 


478       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

ton's  office  and  made  his  acquaintance,  and  from  that  time 
until  this  good  day  he  and  I  have  been  warm  friends.  He 
has  a  genius  for  friendship,  is  a  man  as  true  as  steel,  and  is 
one  of  the  most  capable  physicians  I  have  ever  known.  He 
is  under  contract  to  come  to  me  at  any  time  I  need  him,  and 
I  am  under  similar  contract  to  help  him  in  any  way  that  I 
can,  but  each  would  do  this  for  the  other  without  a  contract. 
He  is  not  only  a  great  doctor,  but  a  great  Christian,  and  it 
is  a  joy  to  me  to  incorporate  his  name  in  this  chronicle. 

Farther  back  in  my  career  I  recall  the  generous  friendship 
of  Dr.  J.  R.  Raby  of  Gatesville,  who  long  since  gave  up  the 
practice  of  medicine  and  got  rich.  He  is  now  the  wealthiest 
man  in  Coryell  County,  and  takes  a  delight  in  his  stock  farm. 
He  was  exceedingly  kind  to  me  when  I  lived  in  Gatesville, 
and  I  wish  for  him  and  his  the  best  of  life's  blessings. 

The  first  days  of  August,  1903,  I  left  Dallas  to  seek  a 
vacation  in  Canada.  Instead,  however,  of  going  into  Can- 
ada I  changed  my  plan  when  I  reached  Detroit,  and  went 
down  to  Battle  Creek  Sanitarium.  There  for  the  first  time 
I  met  Dr.  J.  H.  Kellogg.  I  had  read  after  him  for  years, 
but  had  never  seen  him  until  I  went  into  his  private  office 
in  Battle  Creek.  He  carefully  looked  me  over,  and  then 
said :  "  Dr.  Cranfill,  it  is  about  time  for  you  to  begin  the 
cultivation  of  health."  I  did.  I  stayed  at  the  Sanitarium 
three  weeks,  and  must  testify  that  those  three  weeks  revo- 
lutionized my  physical  life.  Since  that  time  I  have  visited 
Battle  Creek  an  average  of  once  a  year,  not  because  I  was 
sick,  but  because  I  desired  to  keep  well.  Dr.  J.  H.  Kellogg 
is  the  greatest  physician  in  the  world,  and  the  Battle  Creek 
Sanitarium  is  the  greatest  health  institution  on  the  globe. 
No  man  of  his  generation  has  done  so  much  for  humanity 
in  the  matter  of  health,  efficiency  and  longevity,  as  has  Dr. 
Kellogg. 

There  are  doctors  and  doctors.  Some  doctors  are  homeo- 
path, and  that  is  true  of  my  friend.  Dr.  F.  S.  Davis  of  Dal- 


Battle  Creek  Sanitarium,  Battle  Creek,  Michigan. 


Dr.  John  H.  Kellogg,  Superintendent  Battle  Creek  Sanitarium. 


SOME  DOCTORS  I  HAVE  KNOWN        479 

las.  I  do  not  believe  at  all  in  the  little  pills  my  homeopathic 
doctor  friends  administer,  but  once,  after  having  suffered  a 
severe  accident,  I  placed  myself  in  the  hands  of  Dr.  Davis 
for  surgical  attention,  and  he  was  kindness,  graciousness, 
and  helpfulness  combined. 

Speaking  of  surgeons,  I  could  not  close  this  chronicle 
without  reference  to  Dr.  W.  W.  Samuell,  of  Dallas.  He 
is  one  of  the  greatest  surgeons  in  the  world,  and  certainly 
one  of  the  kindest-hearted  men.  Upon  many  occasions  when 
I  have  requested  kindnesses  for  those  in  need  of  his  assist- 
ance he  has  cheerfully  responded.  I  do  not  suppose  he  keeps 
an  account  of  his  charity  practice,  but  no  doubt  his  charity 
practice  is  quite  as  much,  if  not  more,  than  his  pay  practice. 

Dr.  W.  F.  Cole,  of  Waco,  was  very  kind  to  my  dear 
father,  giving  him  new  vision  in  his  last  days. 

And  there  are  multitudes  of  other  physicians  to  whom  I 
am  deeply  indebted  for  kindnesses — Drs.  R.  W.  Baird,  A.  I. 
Folsom,  G.  C.  Kindley,  G.  M.  Hackler,  C.  M.  Rosser,  of 
Dallas ;  Drs.  C.  E.  Stewart  and  A.  J.  Read,  of  Battle  Creek, 
Mich.,  and  a  host  of  others.  I  wish  I  could  give  all  their 
names. 


LXXX 

THE  DEATH  OF  MY  FATHER 

MY  father  died  in  November,  1903,  while  the  Baptist 
General  Converition  was  in  session  at  Dallas.  He 
spent  his  last  days  in  Waco  with  my  sister,  Mrs. 
A.  J.  Williams.  When  I  was  a  child  my  father  suffered  from 
an  acute  attack  of  illness.  He  was  desperately  sick  for  many 
weeks,  but  being  of  a  very  strong  constitution,  he  regained 
his  health.  However,  he  believed  that  he  was  never  quite  so 
strong  thereafter.  When  his  last  sickness  came  the  loved 
ones  at  Waco  did  not  think  it  serious,  and  therefore  I  was 
not  immediately  called  to  his  bedside.  He  knew  that  I 
was  busy  in  the  Baptist  work  here  at  Dallas,  and  being  al- 
ways very  considerate  and  thoughtful,  he  urged  my  sister 
not  to  send  for  me.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  I  failed  to 
reach  my  sister's  home  until  after  he  had  died.  My  brother, 
Dr.  T.  E.  Cranfill,  was  with  him  when  his  last  hours  came, 
and  ministered  to  him  as  best  he  could.  He  met  death 
bravely,  as  I  always  knew  he  would.  Rev.  W.  A.  McKin- 
ney,  at  that  time  pastor  of  the  Clay  Street  Baptist  Church  in 
Waco,  did  my  dear  father  many  kindnesses,  which  all  the 
family  will  always  gratefully  remember.  He  prayed  with 
my  dear  father,  read  to  him  out  of  God's  Word,  and  con- 
soled him  with  Christ's  promises  as  recorded  in  the  Bible. 

After  my  father's  death  I  wrote  an  article  for  The  Bap- 
tist Standard  of  which  I  was  then  editor,  and  it  has  been 
preserved  in  my  book,  CranfilVs  Heart  Talks,  in  which  vol- 
ume it  appears  on  page  153.    I  refer  the  reader  to  that  arti- 

480 


Mrs.  Lillian  (Cranpill)  Lindsey. 


THE  DEATH  OF  MY  FATHER  481 

cle,  which  contains  my  estimate  of  my  father,  and  was  the 
tenderest  tribute  to  him  I  knew  how  to  put  in  words. 

After  the  death  of  my  mother,  my  father  married  the 
second  time,  to  which  union  there  were  born  two  daughters, 
Lillian  and  Josephine.  When  my  father  died  these  chil- 
dren were  quite  young,  and  it  was  my  duty  and  my  joy  to 
take  his  place  in  their  young  lives  as  best  I  could.  I  as- 
sisted each  of  them  to  achieve  a  good  education.  They  both 
graduated  in  the  high  school,  and  each  had  a  year  in  college. 
Lillian  became  a  teacher.  She  taught  for  one  year  at  the 
school  at  the  Buckner  Orphans'  Home,  and  after  that  at 
Greenville.  While  filling  the  latter  position  she  married 
Martin  Lindsey,  and  now  lives  at  Safford,  Arizona. 

Josephine  married  a  Mr.  Richardson  at  Gatesville,  where 
they  now  live. 

My  oldest  sister,  Amanda,  married  W.  B.  Williams,  a 
true  and  noble  man,  and  my  next  oldest  married  a  Mr. 
Snead,  but  she  is  now  a  widow.  My  brother,  Dr.  T.  E. 
Cranfill,  married  Miss  Annie  Cooper. 


LXXXI 
AS  A  CHURCH  MEMBER 

WHATEVER  of  strength  or  ability  my  life  has  held 
has  been  given  to  the  Baptist  cause.  I  have  never 
joined  any  lodge,  nor  have  I  affiliated  with  any  or- 
ganization, fraternal  or  otherwise,  except  the  church.  I  have, 
of  course,  joined  some  civic  bodies,  such  as  The  Authors* 
League  of  America,  The  American  Sociological  Society,  The 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  The  Art  League,  and  the  like  of 
that,  simply  to  help  these  worthy  organizations,  but  my  time 
and  heart  and  life  have  been  interwoven  with  the  life  of  that 
Baptist  church  in  which  I  have  held  membership  in  each 
town  where  I  have  lived. 

I  have  not  only  given  to  the  church  all  of  my  life  and 
time,  but  I  have  given  it  as  liberally  as  I  could  of  my  means. 
Even  before  I  joined  the  Missionary  Baptists  I  began  mak- 
ing gifts  to  Christian  enterprises.  The  first  gift  I  ever  made 
was  to  Waco  University.  That  was  when  I  was  not  yet  19 
years  old.  After  I  joined  the  Missionary  Baptist  Church  at 
Gatesville  I  promptly  attended  the  meeting  of  the  Leon 
River  Association.  I  had  but  $5  in  the  world.  A  collec- 
tion was  taken  up  to  send  Rev.  Sumner  Edwards  to  the 
Louisville  Seminary.  I  gave  my  $5.  My  father,  who  was 
present,  knew  how  penniless  I  was,  and  thought  I  should  not 
have  given  this  money,  but  I  never  regretted  having  done 
so.  I  recall  that  upon  one  occasion  after  I  had  moved  to 
Waco  I  attended  a  fifth  Sunday  meeting  of  the  Waco  As- 
sociation at  Reagan.    When  a  collection  was  taken  I  gave 

482 


Mrs.  Josephine   (Cranfill)   Richardson,  and  Child. 


AS  A  CHURCH  MEMBER  483 

literally  every  cent  I  had,  leaving  myself  not  a  penny  to  get 
home  on.  I  did  not  think  of  my  penniless  condition  until 
after  the  collection  had  closed,  but  was  not  disturbed  thereby. 
As  I  emerged  from  the  crowd  a  man  looked  up  into  my 
face,  and  asked :  "  Is  not  this  Dr.  Cranfill  ?  "  I  said  I  was, 
whereupon  he  handed  me  a  $io  bill  with  the  remark  that  he 
owed  me  five  years'  subscription  to  The  Gatesville  Advance, 
and  had  left  Coryell  County  without  paying  it.  I  have  never 
since  doubted  that  God  would  make  up  to  any  Christian 
for  any  sacrifices  that  Christian  made  for  Him. 

The  Hayden  litigation  cost  me  no  less  than  $25,000,  which 
in  a  large  measure  I  have  always  thought  of  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  Christ's  cause,  for  the  reason  that  our  resistance  and 
defeat  of  his  suits  helped  to  save  the  organized  Baptist  work 
of  Texas,  and  to  bring  in  the  era  of  great  things  among  our 

When  the  Baptist  Sanitarium  was  projected— and  Dr. 
Buckner  and  I  were  the  two  first  men  to  suggest  its  projec- 
tion— I  gave  $2,000  in  cash  to  the  building,  and  this  contri- 
bution is  doing  work  there  today  for  the  glory  of  God.  I 
have  given  into  the  thousands  in  one  way  or  another  to 
Baylor  University,  to  the  Southwestern  Theological  Sem- 
inary, and  to  the  Texas  Baptist  Education  Commission. 
When  Dr.  B.  H.  Carroll  was  secretary  of  this  Commission 
a  great  collection  was  taken  up  for  the  work  when  the  Bap- 
tist State  Convention  met  at  Fort  Worth.  I  gave  in  that 
collection  $1,200,  and  because  this  dear  friend's  name  was 
personally  signed  to  the  receipt  for  this  money  I  have  kept 
it  through  all  the  years,  and  present  it  here : 


484       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILL'S  CHRONICLE 


AS  A  CHURCH  MEMBER  485 

I  have  never  been  too  poor ;  I  have  never  been  too  much 
dispirited ;  I  have  never  been  too  far  down  in  the  ranks  of 
our  brotherhood,  nor  too  high  up  (if  there  be  a  high-up 
place),  to  give  as  best  I  could  to  Christ's  great  cause.  How 
I  rejoice  in  the  thought  of  what  I  have  thus  been  enabled 
to  do !  And  how  I  regret  that  it  has  not  been  more !  It  is 
not  large,  as  men  count  greatness,  but  many  times  I  have 
given  down  to  blood,  and  ofttimes  have  rejoiced  in  my  abil- 
ity to  borrow  money  to  give  to  the  Baptist  cause. 

I  have  never  taken  much  stock  in  the  tithing  plan.  When 
I  see  a  Christian  looking  for  the  little  tin  cup  that  contains 
his  tithe  money,  I  know  there's  not  much  help  from  him. 
No  man  will  ever  soar  to  great  heights  in  Christian  benefi- 
cence who  is  apron-stringed  to  a  fast  and  loose  set  of  tith- 
ing or  other  rules.  I  believe  in  whole-hearted,  cheerful,  self- 
sacrificing,  spontaneous  giving.  If  I  had  waited  to  get  out 
of  debt  or  have  money  ahead  there  would  have  been  no  Bap- 
tist Standard,  no  Carroll's  Sermons  and  no  Carroll's  Inter- 
pretation  of  the  English  Bible.  Christians  should  give  out 
of  their  deficits  as  well  as  their  surplus.  And  all  they  get 
are  three  meals  a  day,  some  clothing  and  a  place  to  sleep, 
anyway. 

I  have  always  joyfully  followed  our  leaders  in  local  and 
general  religious  work.  I  have  no  patience  with  the  man  who 
is  always  in  the  objective  case. 

I  have  never  originated  or  been  a  party  to  a  disturbance 
of  any  kind  in  the  local  church  where  I  have  held  member- 
ship. Anything  in  religion  is  easier  to  bear  than  a  church 
fuss. 

I  have  no  unkind  word  for  those  beloved  brethren  who 
have  aligned  themselves  with  various  and  sundry  lodges  and 
organizations.  Somehow  I  am  not  at  ease  when  I  see  an  Elk 
or  Shrine  pin  on  a  Baptist  preacher,  or  a  cigar  in  his  mouth. 
I  wish  that  all  of  our  brethren,  laymen  and  preachers  alike, 
would  emerge  from  the  thralldom  of  all  the  lodges,  however 


486       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

worthy,  and  give  everything  that  is  in  them  to  Christ's  cause 
as  represented  by  Christ's  church.  Really,  I  wonder  how 
our  beloved  brethren  can  find  time  for  their  lodge  work.  I 
am  sure  that  many  of  them  who  put  out  their  hundreds  of 
dollars  for  lodge  degrees  and  dues,  make  wry  faces  when 
they  are  called  upon  to  give  liberally  of  their  means  to 
Christ's  church,  which  is  the  one  organization  in  the  world 
for  lifting  up  humanity  and  bringing  it  to  God. 


LXXXII 
GEO.  W.  TRUETT'S  CALL  TO  DALLAS 

MY  connection  with  the  call  of  Rev.  George  W. 
Truett  to  the  pastorate  of  the  First  Baptist  Church 
of  Dallas  was  on  this  wise :  When  Rev.  C.  L.  Sea- 
sholes  resigned  the  care  of  this  great  church  in  1897,  I  was 
editor  of  The  Baptist  Standard,  and  was  often  in  Dallas. 
One  of  my  dearest  Dallas  friends  was  Col.  W.  L.  Williams, 
senior  deacon  of  the  First  Baptist  Church.  He  asked  me 
to  suggest  the  name  of  a  pastor  for  the  great  Dallas  church, 
and  I  promptly  gave  him  the  name  of  Rev.  George  W. 
Truett,  pastor  of  the  East  Waco  Church.  He  had  recently 
graduated  with  high  honors  at  Baylor  University ;  had  mar- 
ried Miss  Josephine  Jenkins,  daughter  of  Judge  W.  H.  Jen- 
kins of  Waco,  and  had  even  then  achieved  more  than  state- 
wide prominence. 

Among  my  esteemed  Dallas  friends  were  Waid  Hill  and 
his  noble  wife;  Mrs.  Margaret  A.  Hill,  together  with 
their  daughter,  Mrs.  Dr.  F.  S.  Davis.  These  were  promi- 
nent members  of  the  First  Baptist  Church,  and  to  them  I 
communicated  the  suggestion  I  had  made  to  Col.  Williams. 
Later,  this  church  called  Rev.  George  W.  Truett,  and  he 
came  to  Dallas  in  September,  1897,  preceding  me  by  four 
months.  However,  when  he  accepted  the  Dallas  pastorate 
I  had  no  sort  of  idea  of  coming  to  Dallas  then  or  at  any 
future  time.  My  coming,  which  I  regard  as  providential, 
followed  the  acquirement  on  the  part  of  Col.  C.  C.  Slaughter 
of  a  half  interest  in  The  Baptist  Standard. 

487 


LXXXIII 

WORKING  FOR  PROHIBITION 

1  ACTIVELY  entered  upon  the  work  for  temperance  and 
prohibition  in  1883  before  I  was  25  years  old.  I  have 
been  in  it  ever  since.  When  I  began  to  advocate  prohi- 
bition for  the  county  and  the  state,  Maine  was  the  only  pro- 
hibition state  in  the  union.  The  next  year  Kansas  swung 
into  line,  and  the  great-hearted  governor  of  Kansas,  Hon. 
John  P.  St.  John,  was  nominated  by  the  National  Prohibition 
party  for  president.  He  polled  more  than  150,000  votes, 
and  on  account  of  the  defection  of  New  York  state  Repub- 
licans to  the  Prohibition  party,  Grover  Cleveland  was  elected 
by  the  Democrats  to  the  presidency.  The  Democrats  are  as 
much  indebted  to  John  P.  St.  John  for  Grover  Cleveland  as 
they  are  to  Theodore  Roosevelt  for  Woodrow  Wilson. 

After  the  lapse  of  33  years,  there  are  nineteen  states  now 
under  statutory  and  constitutional  prohibition,  and  vast 
areas  of  other  states  are  under  local  prohibitory  laws.  Not 
only  is  this  true  of  the  United  States,  but  whole  vast  coun- 
tries of  the  old  world  have  adopted  prohibition  as  a  policy, 
as  witness  Russia.  I  aligned  myself  with  the  National  Pro- 
hibition party  in  1886.  Six  years  after  I  began  to  espouse 
the  temperance  and  prohibition  cause,  I  was  greatly  honored 
by  the  Prohibition  party,  as  has  been  outlined  in  preceding 
pages,  but  on  account  of  the  selfishness  and  combativeness 
of  some  of  its  leaders,  the  party  found  itself  a  few  years 
ago  in  dire  straits  in  many  ways.  I  have  never  lost  confi- 
dence in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  prohibition  movement. 
I  joined  the  Prohibition  party  because  I  thought  at  the  time 

488 


WORKING  FOR  PROHIBITION  489 

it  held  out  the  greatest  hope  and  prospect  for  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  movement.  For  years  I  was  a  member  of  the 
National  Committee,  and  until  19 12  a  member  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  the  National  Committee. 

The  Prohibition  party  has  produced  many  great  men,  and 
has  had  many  wonderfully  patriotic  and  capable  leaders.  I 
think  I  have  never  known  a  greater  man  than  John  B.  Finch, 
who  was  chairman  of  the  National  Prohibition  party  the 
year  that  I  became  a  member  of  it.  Other  strong  leaders 
followed,  notably  Samuel  W.  Dickie,  of  Michigan.  It  is  too 
long  a  story  to  incorporate  in  this  recital,  but  the  party  came 
to  be  dominated  by  an  element,  that  as  I  saw  it,  and  still 
see  it,  did  not  have  the  best  interests  of  the  cause  at  heart. 
Efforts  are  being  made  to  rejuvenate  and  rehabilitate  the 
party,  and  this  may  occur  this  year  at  the  Minneapolis  con- 
vention. 

One  thing  is  to  be  said  about  the  National  Prohibition 
party,  and  that  is  that  it  has  accomplished  great  good.  To  it 
we  must  give  distinct  credit  for  the  remarkable  advance 
shown  in  the  prohibition  movement.  Very  largely  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  organization  of  the  country  has  absorbed 
the  activities  of  the  National  Prohibition  party,  but  not 
wholly  so. 

My  attitude  on  the  temperance  and  prohibition  question 
has  been  that  I  was  a  friend  to  every  movement,  and  every 
man  that  looked  to  the  annihilation  of  the  drink  traffic.  I 
have  fought  for  prohibition  in  precinct,  county,  state  and 
nation,  and  am  still  fighting  for  it.  I  have  stood  for  every 
organization  from  the  old  United  Friends  of  Temperance, 
The  Independent  Order  of  Good  Templars,  and  The  Na- 
tional Prohibition  party  to  the  Anti-Saloon  League.  At  the 
present  time  it  seems  as  though  the  Democratic  party  of 
Texas  would  actively  take  up  this  issue,  and  it  is  altogether 
possible  that  when  the  next  National  Democratic  Convention 
assembles  four  years  hence,  the  prohibition  issue  will  then 


490       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

have  become  the  leading  issue  in  that  political  organization. 
However  that  may  be,  I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  a  large 
majority  of  the  Democrats  of  the  South  are  for  the  prohi- 
bition of  the  liquor  traffic. 

In  fighting  the  liquor  traffic  I  have  learned  what  it  means 
to  combat  the  most  gigantic  and  soul-less  corrupting  agency 
this  land  has  ever  known.  A  large  percentage  of  the  men 
who  travel  over  Texas  and  other  states  opposing  prohibi- 
tion are  in  the  pay  of  the  saloonkeepers,  distillers  and  brew- 
ers. Many  politicians  and  lawyers  are  retained  by  this  in- 
terest all  the  time,  and  in  addition  to  the  corruption  money 
they  receive  as  their  regular  retainers,  they  are  paid  extra 
amounts  for  extra  service.  This  is  also  true  of  multitudes  of 
editors  throughout  the  country.  In  many  instances  the  press 
has  been  subsidized  by  the  liquor  interest,  and  whenever  any 
editor  howls  for  personal  liberty,  and  against  the  prohibition 
of  the  liquor  traffic,  the  chances  are  very  great  that  he  is 
howling  for  so  much  a  line. 

I  have  no  apology  to  make  for  the  service  I  have  rendered 
as  an  advocate  of  temperance  and  prohibition.  I  only  regret 
that  I  have  not  been  able  to  do  more  in  this  great  cause. 
That  the  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  certain  to  be  an 
accomplished  fact  in  the  United  States  is  beyond  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt.  We  will  have  National  prohibition  within  the 
next  few  years.  There  will  come  a  time  when  there  will 
not  be  a  saloon  in  any  city,  county  or  state  of  our  great  land. 
One  of  the  joys  of  my  life  is  that  I  have  never  at  any  time 
under  any  circumstances  or  conditions,  failed  to  respond  to 
a  call  to  write  for,  speak  for,  work  for,  or  contribute  to  any 
and  all  efforts  for  the  overthrow  of  this  gigantic  curse. 


R.  vV.  Sears. 


LXXXIV 

R.  W.  SEARS 

APRIL  30,  1907,  when  I  was  on  an  Iron  Mountain 
train  bound  for  Chicago,  I  went  into  the  dining  car 
at  noon,  and  when  seated  found  myself  touching 
elbows  with  a  very  intelligent  and  amiable  man.  He  had 
preceded  me,  and  having  finished  his  meal  first,  I  was  about 
to  arise  to  give  him  egress,  whereupon  he  said  he  would 
wait  until  I  was  through.  It  was  thus  that  our  desultory 
conversation  continued  with  increasing  interest,  and  when  I 
had  finished  my  luncheon  he  invited  me  to  join  him  in  the 
drawing  room. 

The  man  was  R.  W.  Sears,  founder,  and  at  that  time 
president  of  the  Sears-Roebuck  Company,  of  Chicago.  We 
talked  all  the  way  to  St.  Louis,  and  there  our  roads  diverged, 
but  we  did  not  separate  until  I  had  accepted  an  invitation 
to  visit  him  in  his  home  sometime  soon  thereafter. 

I  was  on  my  way  to  Chicago  to  begin  work  as  joint  editor 
of  The  Associated  Prohibition  Press,  and  later  I  did  go  to 
the  home  of  R.  W.  Sears,  spent  several  days  with  him  and 
his  family,  and  the  acquaintance  which  began  on  the  dining 
car  ripened  into  a  friendship  that  strengthened  with  the 
passing  years. 

I  have  never  known  of  a  more  emphatic  illustration  of  the 
value  of  courtesy  and  kindness  than  I  found  in  the  begin- 
nings of  this  acquaintance  with  one  of  the  noblest  men  I 
ever  knew.  The  little  courteous  attentions  I  showed  this 
stranger  impressed  him  deeply,  and  led  to  a  friendship  and  a 
business  connection  that  was  among  the  happiest  of  my  life. 

491 


492       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

After  having  learned  to  know  Mrs.  Anna  L.  Sears,  his 
charming  wife,  and  all  of  his  children — Sylva,  a  young  girl 
in  her  teens ;  Warren,  the  older  son ;  Serena,  the  younger 
daughter,  and  Wesley,  the  baby  boy — and  having  lingered 
more  than  once  in  this  hospitable  home,  I  feel  moved  to 
testify  that  I  have  never  known  a  happier  home,  and  have 
never  at  any  time  met  kinder  or  more  considerate  friends. 

R.  W.  Sears  was  an  ideal  business  man.  Beginning  life 
out  in  Minnesota  as  a  telegraph  operator,  his  career  ended 
September  28,  1914,  at  which  time  he  died  one  of  the 
wealthiest  men  in  the  Northwest,  and  left  a  heritage  to  his 
section  and  his  country  of  one  of  the  best  organized  and 
most  thoroughly  systematized  enterprises  I  have  ever  known. 
His  career  as  a  business  man  was  unique.  His  father  was 
a  poor  man,  and  often  moved  from  one  place  to  another,  the 
result  being  that  young  Richard  found  it  necessary  to  assist 
in  winning  bread  for  the  family.  At  14  he  began  the  study 
of  telegraphy,  and  at  16  was  a  station  agent  and  operator  in 
a  little  Minnesota  town.  While  filling  this  position  a  mail 
order  catalogue  fell  into  his  hands  which  advertised  silver 
watches  at  bargain  prices.  He  bought  one  for  $12.  It  was 
so  satisfactory  that  he  sent  out  a  dozen  letters  to  other 
agents  along  the  line  calling  their  attention  to  this  watch, 
which  he  agreed  to  furnish  them  at  $16  each.  Ten  of  them 
bought  the  watches,  and  he  thus  cleaned  up  a  profit  of  $40. 
He  then  sent  out  500  circular  letters  to  other  railroad  agents 
in  Minnesota,  and  sold  200  watches,  clearing  a  profit  of  $800. 
With  the  consent  of  his  superiors  he  started  a  coal  and  wood 
business,  and  made  money  out  of  that.  A  little  later  he  re- 
signed his  position  with  the  railway  company,  went  down  to 
Minneapolis  and  established  a  modest  mail  order  house, 
which  finally  grew  into  the  mammoth  concern  now  known 
as  the  Sears-Roebuck  Company. 

He  told  me  of  the  first  five  millions  of  dollars  that  came 
to  him.     It  was  from  the  incorporation  of  the  Sears-Roe- 


R.  W.  SEARS  493 

buck  Company,  and  the  sale  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  worth 
of  first  mortgage  7  per  cent  bonds.  He  went  to  New  York 
and  sold  these  bonds,  giving  five  millions  of  dollars  to  his 
partner,  and  taking  five  millions  for  himself.  In  addition  to 
this  ten  millions  of  bonds  they  issued  twenty-five  millions 
of  dollars  in  common  stock,  which,  while  at  that  time  was  of 
little  value,  is  now  worth  $1.54. 

I  have  given  these  simple  incidents  in  the  life  of  this  won- 
derfully great  business  man,  as  an  illustration  of  what  a  poor 
American  boy  may  do. 

R.  W.  Sears  was  a  man  of  sterling  honesty,  and  pos- 
sessed of  the  biggest  brain  of  any  friend  I  ever  had.  Withal 
a  noble  heart  beat  in  his  bosom,  and  his  ear  was  open  to  every 
worthy  cause. 

When  I  returned  from  Chicago  in  October,  1907,  I  soon 
thereafter  began  making  loans  in  Dallas  for  Mr.  Sears,  and 
still  represent  his  estate  in  this  city.  I  loaned  several  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  for  him,  to  our  mutual  profit,  and  I 
have  never  had  business  relations  with  any  man  that  were 
more  pleasant  than  my  connection  with  him. 

September  28,  19 14,  this  beloved  friend  suddenly  died. 
He  left  an  estate  running  into  many  millions,  and  a  record 
for  sagacity,  uprightness  in  business,  big-heartedness  and 
big-mindedness  unexcelled  in  the  commercial  life  of  our 
nation. 

His  widow,  Mrs.  Anna  L.  Sears,  at  once  took  up  the  man- 
agement of  this  vast  estate,  and  is  handling  it  with  remark- 
able ability. 


LXXXV 

SOME  CLOSING  WORDS 

IN  writing  these  last  words  of  this  chronicle,  which  I 
trust  has  held  for  the  reader  more  than  a  passing  in- 
terest, I  make  a  confession,  and  register  a  conviction. 
The  foregoing  pages  have  detailed  my  life  as  I  have  lived 
it,  which  has  been  fragmentary  at  its  best,  and  which  if  I 
could  re-cast  it  now  and  begin  anew  at  the  point  where  I 
emerged  from  the  baptismal  waters  at  Hurst  Spring  in 
1876,  it  would  be  a  very  different  life.  If  I  could  traverse 
life's  way  again  I  would  have  naught  to  do  with  mere  tem- 
poralities or  materialities.  Beginning  in  those  youthtime 
years  I  would  fashion  everything  I  did  so  that  it  would 
contribute  to  the  one  great  life  work  of  preaching  the  gospel. 
Let  no  young  minister  take  consolation  to  his  heart  for  the 
secularities  of  his  life,  because  in  this  faithful  record  of  my 
own  life  I  have  told  the  truth  about  myself.  A  man's  life 
consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he  pos- 
sesseth.  Nor  does  it  consist  in  the  multitudes  of  the  mate- 
rial things  which  he  accomplishes. 

In  saying  this  I  mean  no  reflection  upon  those  business 
men  whose  lives  have  been  immersed  in  commercial  under- 
takings. They  are  slaves  to  their  business  and  their  money, 
and  revel  in  the  accumulation  of  wealth  and  property,  just 
as  a  hunter  glories  in  the  chase.  None  of  that  has  ever 
appealed  to  me,  and  my  connection  with  money-making  has 
been  an  incident,  and  one  in  which  I  took  and  take  no  pride. 

Life's  day  is  a  short  little  day  at  best.  I  wish  mine  had 
been  better  lived.    I  wish  I  had  done  more  good.    My  life's 

494 


SOME   CLOSING  WORDS  495 

motto  has  been  to  "  Be  kinder  to  everybody  than  anybody 
can  be  to  me,  and  do  it  first."  I  have  sought  to  help  the 
weak,  to  lift  up  the  fallen,  to  minister  to  the  sick  and  suffer- 
ing, to  comfort  the  bereaved,  to  lend  a  hand  of  help  and 
cheer  to  the  man  out  and  down  and  helpless.  How  well  I 
have  succeeded  I  leave  those  who  know  me  best  to  say,  but  I 
have  tried,  even  with  my  life  checkered  as  its  days  have 
been,  to  help  every  man  I  could,  to  do  all  the  good  I  could,  to 
cheer  all  the  sad  I  could,  and  to  smile  my  way  along,  re- 
gardless of  whether  my  own  heart  was  heavy,  or  my  own 
life's  skies  spanned  by  radiant  bows  of  promise. 

Looking  back  upon  my  life  as  I  have  lived  it,  I  feel  that 
every  hour  of  my  time  spent  in  any  line  of  business,  save 
that  of  religion,  philanthropy  and  literature,  has  been  a 
wasted  hour,  and  one  for  which  I  shall  at  life's  end  give  a 
strict  account  to  God.  I  have  made  money,  but  I  never  cared 
for  money.  In  business  I  did  always  in  a  business  way  want 
what  was  mine,  reserving  to  myself  the  right  to  do  with 
mine  as  I  thought  best,  but  the  ability  to  make  money  is  a 
low  and  groveling  talent  at  its  best.  To  me  all  mere  business, 
whether  successful  or  not,  has  been  dull  and  prosaic. 

If  these  words  shall  come  to  any  young  man  who  looks 
out  upon  life's  untrod  paths  with  hungry  eye,  longing  for  a 
career  that  will  most  honor  his  country  and  his  God,  I  be- 
seech him  to  follow  the  light  with  which  God's  Spirit  lights 
his  life.  Let  him  close  his  ears  to  every  temptation  to  be  di- 
verted from  the  great  main  point  of  life — that  of  bringing 
men  to  righteous  ways  and  into  right  relations  with  their 
Saviour. 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  been  true  to  the  facts  of 
history,  but  naught  has  been  set  down  in  malice.  I  have 
no  unforgiven  enemy  in  all  the  world.  Some  have  harmed 
me  much,  and  others  have  wished  me  harm,  but  they  who 
yet  survive  will,  as  I,  soon  meet  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth, 


496       DR.  J.  B.  CRANFILUS  CHRONICLE 

who  doeth  right.     To  Him  I  leave  their  case  as  well  as 
mine,  and  as  I  pray  for  mercy  for  myself,  I  pray  for  them. 

And  now  my  words  are  done.  I  am  not  yet  old,  but  life's 
sun  is  dipping  toward  the  westering  hills.  I  have  reached 
and  passed  life's  noon,  and  face  the  swift-coming  of  the  twi- 
light hours.  With  deep  contrition  I  sorrow  now  for  every 
sin  that  has  marred  my  own  or  any  other  life ;  I  grieve  for 
every  unkind  word  that  I  have  ever  said ;  I  deplore  the  loss 
of  every  wasted  hour;  I  am  sad  that  my  life  has  not  been 
lived  more  nobly  and  with  greater  usefulness.  When  Helen 
Hunt  Jackson  was  within  a  few  short  hours  of  life's  end 
she  wrote  the  lines  that  follow,  and  they  so  truly  repre- 
sent my  own  heart  that  I  leave  them  with  the  reader  as  my 
closing  word : 

Father,  I  scarcely  dare  to  pray, 

So  clear  I  see,  now  it  is  done, 
That  I  have  wasted  half  my  day, 

And  left  my  work  but  just  begun. 

So  clear  I  see  that  things  I  thought 
Were  right  and  harmless  were  a  sin; 

So  clear  I  see  that  I  have  sought 
Unconscious,  selfish  aims  to  win; 

So  clear  I  see  that  I  have  hurt 
The  souls  I  might  have  helped  to  save; 

That  I  have  slothful  been,  inert, 
Deaf  to  the  calls  thy  leaders  gave. 

In  outskirts  of  thy  kingdom  vast, 

Father,  the  humblest  spot  give  me; 
Set  me  the  lowliest  task  thou  hast; 

Let  me  repentant  work  for  thee! 


^ 


A 


